


Jongleur, Bard, Lord, and Bride

by innie



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Medieval, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-10 12:17:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12299085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innie/pseuds/innie
Summary: Eggsy is only a jongleur.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Medieval AU that somehow combines historical accuracy in several of the details with a rampant disregard for reality in the general setting. I don't even know - all I can say is that I did a lot of research and hand-waved whenever I painted myself into a corner. (Oh my god, the nappy crisis!) Ellis Peters should shoulder some of the blame here, since I've been reading and rereading her Brother Cadfael series since I was thirteen.
> 
> Also, fun fact that is fun only to me: this story grew out of the original inspiration I had for ["Blushingham Palace,"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11730603) which had to be divided into two. But it has grown monstrously and unexpectedly.
> 
> This is posted incomplete because I had a deadline to meet (happy birthday, lady!). I will definitely be finishing this piece up, most likely after Yuletide - there's still an awful lot of story to tell about our four eponymous characters. **ETA:** The story is now complete - exactly one year later! The rating has gone up, but the lack of archive warnings is the same, and for the same reason.
> 
> Lastly, I chose not to use archive warnings only because Eggsy and Roxy are both quite young in this story - though they were considered old enough to marry and have children within the setting - and I didn't want to worry about whether medieval teenagers (fifteen- or sixteen-year-olds, maybe) having sex warranted an underage tag.
> 
> Unbetaed or Britpicked because I have some shame, and I'd already put my beta through enough with the 45K of ["Kissing Carrion"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12112806) and I'd promised her a break.

Eggsy is there the day Lord Chester, the greedy pig, chokes on a bone and dies. The roaring fire is loud, crackling and snapping, and the dogs are growling and fighting for the scraps Lord Chester throws over his shoulder; no one can hear Eggsy's singing, let alone any gasps for air from their suddenly pop-eyed lord.

The rushes beneath his feet are filthy and crawling with vermin. He's never liked being hired here - Lord Chester pays in the same scraps he gives his dogs rather than coins - but Eggsy won't be picky if he can keep his sister warm and dry. Rhiannon, who runs the kitchen, has no time to watch Daisy, but her lamed son - the one they call Ryan, Rhiannon's boy, because no one wants to admit that he's one of Lord Chester's innumerable bastards - can keep an eye on her, tucked up in her basket, as he shells peas or turns the spit. The kitchen is warm and clean, in part because of the army of mousers Rhiannon keeps, but mostly because Lord Chester has never set foot in it; Daisy's safe there.

Sir Percival, never one for his cups, is the first knight to realise Eggsy's stopped his song. He doesn't seem to be in a particular hurry to confirm that Lord Chester, now fully purple and utterly still, is in fact dead, but he does look over at Eggsy consideringly. Eggsy is about to protest his innocence - he'd have liked a bit of meat for himself, he'd hardly have been ramming it down Lord Chester's overfed gullet - but realises Sir Percival's none too perturbed by this turn of events. He's always wondered why Sir Percival, who'd earned his shield fair and square, would have chosen to serve Lord Chester, who had to be heaved onto his poor horse.

Eggsy leaves that question behind to think as quickly as his confusion and vague satisfaction will allow. If he can leave Daisy with Ryan for a few days, he can ride Bower to the monastery and even all the neighbouring castles over the hills to deliver the news and be paid in shiny coins; he'll earn enough to keep his sister and his jennet fed, and if they all have to bunk down together in some new lord's stable, at least they'll be warm. His mother's needlework is sturdy enough that nothing he's wearing needs mending yet, and the soft cloth lining Daisy's basket is still whole and thick. 

He tells Ryan the news and asks if he's willing to watch Daisy, Rhiannon and the mouser he's scritching under its chin both listening avidly the whole time. At Ryan's pleased nod of agreement, he gives Daisy as much milk as can be spared from Rhiannon's stores and as many kisses as he can muster in the time it takes to change her nappy, and heads out.

*

"Eggsy!" Lord James, always a merry man, greets him. "What new wonders? I have heard tell of a jongleur who can walk on his hands the length of a castle's bailey wall."

Eggsy's been trying to think up rhymes as he goes, but even with Bower's hoofbeats setting a pleasing rhythm, he finds the words do not come so easily without Daisy's little flower-face for inspiration. He hops off Bower's low back, steeling himself to focus on the news he must deliver rather than worrying over providing entertainment. That trick with the hands is worth considering, though; adding one more horseshoe to his juggling was good, but not enough to keep the lords and knights hiring him through the winter months. Lord James has often invited him to stay the winter and polish his skills, but there is no Ryan, with his friendly face, or Rhiannon, with her bounty of food fit for a babe's stomach, in this manor, at least as far as he knows.

He has to play it safe. Daisy deserves no less.

"Apologies, m'lord," he says, genuflecting. "I bring you word that Lord Chester's dead."

Lord James looks uncannily like Sir Percival just then, watchful and considering and more pleased than he ought to be at the death of one of the Lord's creatures, as Abbot Paul would say. Abbot Paul never had to deal much with Lord Chester, though.

"Indeed," Lord James says finally, gesturing for Eggsy to rise from his respectful bow. "Who else knows?"

"You're the first, m'lord." Not just because of geography; Eggsy could have set out the other way and gone to the abbey first and then sought the border of Lord Chester's lands, but this was the route his instinct told him to take.

"Very good. I'll ride to my good neighbours and tell them the tidings. You'll be going on to the abbey?" Eggsy nods dumbly, unable to protest, though the loss of so many knights' and lords' coins is sharp indeed. "Ah, let me recompense you as they would," Lord James says, tossing a leather purse positively bursting with coin at him. Eggsy is still fumbling for it, uncharacteristically clumsy, when Lord James claps a hard hand on his shoulder. "You'll wait for me at the abbey."

"Sir, I need to get back -" Eggsy begins, for there's only so long he can trespass upon others' goodwill to handle his responsibility.

"You'll wait, and we'll all go safely together to Lord Chester's castle," Lord James insists. "I'll not be more than a day."

"Aye, m'lord," Eggsy says, subsiding.

*

Bower knows the way to the abbey, but her surefootedness does not absolve Eggsy from paying attention to their path. He has coin enough for the winter to guard now, a treasure for his treasure.

He relaxes when Adam, the Saracen lay-brother whom Lord James had brought out of the Holy Land and into the Church, approaches, one friendly and familiar hand already out to stroke down Bower's long nose. Adam had gone willingly with Lord James, but he confided in Eggsy that he had not known what else to do, with his city sacked and his family dead; he was ready to work and liked the prospect of seeing a world at peace, and so he put away the name by which his mother had called him - Jamal - and became Adam.

Knowing Bower is safe in her old friend Adam's care, Eggsy leaves her with a quick pat and sets off to find Prior Andrew, who's never stinted in pouring Eggsy a flagon of the beer the brothers brew to wet his journey-parched throat. "Father Prior," Eggsy says, making his reverence, "the news I bear is that Lord Chester has died."

Prior Andrew makes the sign of the cross but speaks no words to commend the late lord's soul to heaven; it strikes Eggsy as sad that not one person can muster up any sorrow over Lord Chester's passing - had the man no kin or heirs? "I must make this known to Abbot Paul. Will you stay for a meal?"

Eggsy nods his obedience to Prior Andrew, and Brother Nicholas the cellarer brings him bread and cheese and beer.

*

Eggsy is upside-down, Adam loosely holding his ankles as he walks on his hands round the Gate House. "You've taken to this like an eel to water," Adam says admiringly, and Eggsy laughs his delight, his breath coming fast and getting stuck in his throat.

"Tumble for coins, and you could pick this up too," he promises Adam. "Got to have something to show the lords and ladies and fair-goers. Can't play any fancy instruments, couldn't afford one anyway." He can now, he supposes, with Lord James's purse, but even if he buys a rebec or a gittern, he will still have the trouble of carrying it as carefully as he does Daisy, and it will remain purely decorative, given his ignorance. Better to save the coins than dream of becoming a proper musician.

He flips from hands to feet and back again, testing the strength and springiness of his limbs, bowing when Adam cheers. Adam breaks off suddenly and runs to the gate he's supposed to be minding. He swings it open to let in a stream of horses, Lord James handsomely mounted on the first. Eggsy has always been sharp-eyed - he had seen the bruises his mother tried to hide, he can see when a man is likely to try to trip him with a tossed stick instead of parting with a coin - and he spots one small, swathed bundle riding pillion behind Sir Gilbert, hemmed in close in the middle of the pack. Sir Gilbert's girth is so prodigious that the bundle is sitting nearly on the horse's tail, but Sir Gilbert is old and gallant and his steed is gentle, all good reasons for any important personage to ride pillion on his mount in particular. 

"Eggsy," Lord James says, diverting his attention. "We must leave now if we're to be at Lord Chester's manor before dark. Get your jenny and come along."

*

Bower has to trot at top speed to keep pace with the larger mounts of the knights and lords, but Eggsy knows he's a light enough burden, and besides, Bower seems to like the songs he makes up to make every mile seem like only a few yards.

He can't be sure, given how thoroughly covered from head to foot the bundle is - and in costly fabric by the sheen of it, the likes of which his mother had rarely had between her fingers - but Eggsy has his suspicions that he's being closely observed. Well, it's not for him to protest what the rich choose to do, so he pats Bower's neck reassuringly and thinks of how much he'll have to tell Daisy.

"Eggsy," Lord James says, guiding his horse - Lancelot, Eggsy's heard him named - into step next to Bower, "when you left Lord Chester's castle, who was making preparations for the funerary rites?"

"Dunno if anybody was, but Sir Percival seemed to be taking charge of everything." Eggsy figures Abbot Paul will know what to do and step up for the actual service; Lord Chester never seemed particularly friendly with the church, but he also did not have many friends outside it.

"And this Sir Percival, what's your opinion of him?"

"A good man," Eggsy says readily, because Lord James seems to think Eggsy, of all people, has the right to express an opinion. It's true, in any case. Sir Percival was the one who'd seen Eggsy lay Daisy's basket in Bower's patient shadow, right underneath her belly, on a fine sunny day when he needed to practice his flips and juggling without being worried that Daisy might crawl away. Sir Percival had given the jennet her name when he said, "Ah! Your mount is also my lady's bower," and swept a grand bow to Daisy, who'd waved an excited fist in the air and gurgled excitedly. Anyone who could make Daisy coo like that deserved any amount of praise. "You'll like him," Eggsy tells Lord James, smiling when he remembers how Bower had lipped tenderly at the downy fuzz covering Daisy's head.

"A very fierce fighter, is he?" Lord James asks, mistaking the smile.

"Must be," Eggsy says. He only knows bare-knuckle brawls, but Sir Percival could do much more than that. Lord Chester certainly hadn't been in fighting shape, but he'd never seemed worried about the safety of his lands, and the abbey seemed to be prospering, so it stood to reason Sir Percival and the knights under him were more than capable of maintaining the peace.

"We'll have to see how his steel fares against mine," Lord James says, clearly relishing the prospect of a fight, even in fun. "We could make a day of it, a tournament of sorts, with you tumbling and entertaining the crowd to start with."

"But Sir Percival already has a lady's favour," Eggsy says mischievously. "He doesn't need a tournament to win that."

Lord James laughs. "I'll wager you any sum you like that I can steal any lady's heart away from its pledged master," he boasts, but Eggsy doubts Daisy will be so easily wooed.

*

Daisy's constancy is not tested. 

Lord James takes one look at his supposed rival and capitulates completely, echoing all of Sir Percival's words and mirroring his every action; if Eggsy didn't know that lords marry to beget heirs, he'd swear Lord James meant to court Sir Percival, and Eggsy can only be glad that can't be it, because Lord James would likely ask him to compose a wooing song or sonnet and he can't think of a single rhyme for _Percival_ , except, perhaps, for _merciful_. Casting a brave knight as Mother Mary would likely not win Lord James any points.

Eggsy watches Lord James following Sir Percival around like a duckling - still not winning any points - and narrates all of the action to Daisy, who's tucked up in his arms, smelling sweet as new milk. He's forgotten the little pillion bundle entirely - he'd fed and watered and brushed down Bower at top speed, eager to see his sister - until Sir Percival asks after it. 

Rhiannon, plotting, tries to take Daisy in order to grant Eggsy the freedom to skulk silently in a corner and eavesdrop, but Daisy is having none of it. In the end, Rhiannon huffs out a sigh and pushes Eggsy into the great hall with his squirming sister still in his arms. Lord James and Sir Percival both note him, but the other knights pay him and Daisy no mind.

The bundle, unwrapped from its cloth, is apparently a girl, so small Eggsy thinks for a moment she's still a child. But she's his own age, on second look, or close enough that they'd have been counted lambs of the same season. "Come here, child," Sir Percival asks.

The girl steps forward, not needing Sir Gilbert's comforting hand on her back, to stand before Sir Percival and Lord James. 

Sir Percival looks at her closely and Lord James, after giving him a sidelong glance, asks, "You are Lady Roxanne, acknowledged child of Lord Chester of Wiht by his lady wife Margery?"

"Yes, sir; I have that honour." Her voice is as decided as Rhiannon's. Lord James and Sir Percival both nod approvingly at her and Eggsy nuzzles into Daisy, wondering if he'd be so brave in facing down a hall full of knights and lords and not knowing who meant him well or ill.

"Your father is dead, child, and as his heiress you are bound to marry as he intended."

"Yes, sir. I was promised at the age of reason to Lord Merick of Lindsey. I understand where my duty lies."

"The sisters have educated you well, Lady Roxanne; you speak most fair," Lord James says, and Eggsy rolls the words around in his mind, imagining a time when a lord could say as much to Daisy, grown beautiful and wise as a queen.

"I thank you, sir," Lady Roxanne answers, enough of a lilt in her voice to turn the last word into a question. Eggsy has questions of his own, such as who this Lady Margery is and why he's never seen her or even heard a whisper of her name.

"I am Lord James. I hold the lands adjoining your father's, or rather, yours. And this is Sir Percival, leader of the knights pledged to your father, and so to you."

"Sir Percival," Lady Roxanne says, "my mother's brother?"

"Yes, child," Sir Percival answers gently. "In your bright face she lives again," he says, and Lady Roxanne flies into his arms. Eggsy jiggles Daisy and heads back to the kitchen to make his report, thinking that Sir Percival has an incomparable way with words and, for all that he's a warrior, he looks happiest when he's holding his kinswoman.

*

"Lord Merick is reputed to be a man of great learning," Lord James says. Sir Percival is hardly attending him, that much Eggsy can see out of the corner of his eye as he tries to feed Daisy some mashed-up apple. She keeps twisting to look over at the two men - either wanting her hero's familiar gaze on her or willing the pigeon pie steaming between them to come close enough to taste - and Eggsy shifts her on his lap and manages finally to get the spoon between her little rosebud lips. 

"Lord Merick, I am told, has a particular love of the arts," Lord James tries again, amiably enough, but Sir Percival still says nothing. If Sir Percival is trying to come up with a way to get under Lord James's skin, he's hit upon the very thing, and Eggsy hides his grin in Daisy's soft hair. It's long enough to show a bit of curl now, as much darker than the Lady Roxanne's as Lady Roxanne's was to his mother's.

Lord James heaves an irritated sigh - he, too, sounds so much like Rhiannon - and says, "Lord Merick is ten feet tall, twenty feet wide, and has hair of the darkest green."

"I know Lord Merick of old," Sir Percival finally says, "and Roxanne will be fortunately matched. But -" he breaks off with a much more melancholy sigh.

"But what?" Lord James asks, sober now.

Sir Percival eyes him like a poet needing to memorise his sweetheart's face before praising every feature in verse. Eggsy thinks Sir Percival would likely have made a very fair poet, and waits to hear what he comes up with. But Sir Percival decides to keep silent about the cause of his sorrow, diverting Lord James by jesting mildly, "But his hair is blue, not green."

Lord James laughs aloud, the noise first startling Daisy and then making her wriggle happily on Eggsy's lap. He splits the last of the apple mush between them and scoops her up, taking her outside while the sunshine lasts.

*

"Eggsy," Lady Roxanne says, startling him considerably and making the brush skate sharply off Bower's flank. At least it was not at her tender neck near the still-raised stripes Dean had inflicted. 

"Yes, m'lady," he says, bobbing a sort of half-bow. He's not been this close to a proper lady before, and between her rank and her youth he's not sure which wins out and how much reverence to offer.

Daisy wails a bit, now that his steady narration of the tale of Princess Daisy and Her Favourite Jester Eggsy has been interrupted, and Lady Roxanne looks over at her basket with a smile. "May I hold her?"

"Course, m'lady," he says, giving Bower a last few apologetic strokes of the brush, and Bower dances her forgiveness, her side-to-side steps as delicate as any fine lady's. "Let me just get her settled." Picking up Daisy's basket, he follows Lady Roxanne to the orchard. Lady Roxanne sits on the lush grass and holds her arms out, so Eggsy has to lean very close indeed to put his sister in her arms. Lady Roxanne smells as pretty as she looks, the scent of lavender rising up from her.

Eggsy clasps his hands awkwardly, unused to their being empty and idle. Lady Roxanne's hair and veil are being tossed by the warm breeze and she looks up at Eggsy with a smile. "Please, go on, practice as you would if I were not here. I do not believe you often have the leisure to do so, with this little beauty to mind." Daisy's hand comes up to pat the lady's cheek, then to try to grab at the ends of Lady Roxanne's hair, as if the wind is playing with it solely for her amusement. "And I will practice holding a babe. I expect I will have one of my own soon enough, as the marriage has been settled long ago."

She does not sound particularly happy, and Eggsy knows it's not his place to speak of her future, but he cannot stop himself from saying, "Perhaps you will have a doting husband."

"Perhaps," she allows, and smiles at Daisy, letting her capture the end of one long wheat-coloured lock. "I have heard he is a great one for songs. Will you travel with us and entertain at the wedding feast, to show Lord Merick that we of Wiht are fond of good music as well?"

Eggsy stops in the middle of one of his stretches, one foot raised above his head. "I cannot leave her," he says, though it is tempting, not only to travel but to have such work in front of him.

"Your daughter? Bring her, and her mother as well."

"She's - Daisy's my sister," he says. He's stiffer than he should be when he bends backwards to meet the ground with his palms.

"Ah." Lady Roxanne's face clouds; he can tell, even upside down. "Did your mother die in childbed like mine?"

She might not have succumbed so soon after, had Dean not made her life a misery. She might have had the strength to live instead of kissing Eggsy goodbye and shutting her shamed eyes in her bruised face.

"I am sorry," Lady Roxanne says, reading an answer into his silence. "If this little flower is your only tie here, you could make the journey with us and stay in my husband's court. I would like to have a friend there."

"A friend?" he asks, more startled than ever. He flips himself upright.

"And Daisy shall have cream and honey morning, noon, and night," Lady Roxanne continues easily, as if she's said nothing out of the ordinary, smoothing down Daisy's flyaway curls, and Daisy gurgles her agreement with the plan.

*

Daisy loudly protests being swaddled as tightly as she was as an infant and then bound to his chest, but Eggsy cannot afford to worry about her while trying to keep Bower on pace with the mounts of the wedding party, all of which, even the sweet-tempered mare on which Lady Roxanne is seated, are at least half again the jennet's size. 

Lady Roxanne is, it appears, a good rider when she is left alone instead of being bundled and made to ride pillion. Eggsy looks past his sister to study her, trying to fashion rhymes suitable for the new lord's bridal feast. True, Lord Merick will likely be sipping from the wedding cup's bounty of spiced wine by the time Eggsy's repertoire is exhausted and he needs to recite any of his own compositions, but the lord's reputation as a patron of the arts only makes the need to impress him all the stronger.

 _Mon mai longe liues wene_ he sings, and Daisy's big eyes are immediately fixed on his face. He must look to her like he fills the whole sky, and he smiles down at her, vowing silently to keep her safe for as long as he lives. 

His voice is quiet, for he is only practicing, and the slow, drawn-out melody is good for improving his breath control, as is Bower's not-quite-regular gait; he will have to tumble, sing, and tumble again to make up for not playing even a pipe or gewgaw. Daisy's eyes begin to close as if he's singing a lullaby instead of a lament.

When the song is done, Sir Percival nods at him like he'd like to toss him a coin, then slows his mount's rapid clip to come up beside him. "I am glad you will stay with her," Sir Percival says, and Eggsy is confused for a moment, thinking he's speaking of Daisy rather than Lady Roxanne. Sir Percival must return to Wiht after the marriage to administer Lady Roxanne's lands and keep the castle running for her heirs; Lord James will surely help, but nothing can make up for the distance that life will put between uncle and niece.

"Something more cheerful, Eggsy!" Lord James calls, making his way over to them, unable to bear even so short a separation from Sir Percival, and for a miracle Daisy doesn't waken from the boisterous shout. Eggsy shoots him a look, gets a half-apologetic shrug in return, and launches into a quieter version of the song he heard the young bucks singing at the market when they were in their cups.

Lord James laughs and sings along at the chorus, but Sir Percival remains silent until Eggsy's breath is gone and Lord James has croaked out the last chorus in a voice that veers sharply away from the actual melody. Sir Percival leans over and says, "I'll show you how to handle a knife." Eggsy wants to protest - where would he get a proper knife, wouldn't wearing one make him a more tempting target for the thieves who lurk at fairgrounds or even the law, can't he just eel away from trouble as he always has before - but Sir Percival murmurs something about sweet girls who deserve protection, and Eggsy cannot argue.

*

"Lady Roxanne," Eggsy hisses, too mortified to moderate his tone.

She simply laughs and tells him to speak more demurely. 

Eggsy knows that his beardless face betrays his youth, that his voice is high enough that Brother Avery the precentor calls him a pure tenor, and that he is built more like a reed than an oak. He knows too that Daisy would be unhappy - vocally so - if he handed her off even to Lady Roxanne, who seems to enjoy fussing over her. None of that, Eggsy judges, is adequate reason for him to have his cotte pulled off and the thickest of Lady Roxanne's gowns draped over him in its stead.

"Hush, Lady Egelina," Lady Roxanne says, sitting perfectly still in the saddle. "My uncle is making the arrangements."

The porter seems eager to oblige Sir Percival, and there is a guest-house of this abbey available for the Lady Roxanne, her lady cousin, and the cousin's babe; the knights and lords will shelter for the night in the travellers' hall. Eggsy hides his flushed cheeks behind the veil he wears, but the monks respectfully and in their innocence do not raise their gazes above his knees.

Once the door is safely latched behind them, Eggsy puts Daisy down on the pallet and unwinds her swaddling; if he is hot in his borrowed gown and veil, she must be roasting, poor babe. He sings as he works, soft and high, the wordless chirping birdsong she likes best, and soon enough she is smiling again. She laughs when he finally removes the wretched veil and gown, and he is quick to pull on his cotte; it is already improper for him to be sharing space with a lady, and he will not compound his error by sitting in just his chemise and hose.

Lady Roxanne simply settles herself beside Daisy and works diligently, embroidering small flowers on a gown of blue. Eggsy looks at her and shuts his eyes just enough that she could be his mother, plying her quick needle and listening to her daughter's sleepily contented breaths. He only wishes his mother had had the chance.

*

Lord Merick's great hall is brighter than any other he's seen; Eggsy gawks unashamedly at the tall and narrow openings in the oddly angled walls that seem to let in a great deal of sunlight. It's sweeter smelling, too, for which he credits the fresh rushes underfoot before he spots the muted colours of drying herbs hanging in bunches. Daisy, still strapped to his chest, uses her few but sharp teeth to tear at the soft inside of Rhiannon's last loaf, and Eggsy drops one hand to her tumbled hair, in which the light is picking out strands of gold.

That is when he sees the greatest treasure the new lord's great hall holds. There is a man in scarlet, whose hair and eyes are russet brown, who has a slim length of limb not even Lord James can match. The man is examining their entire party and hasn't yet noticed him, but Eggsy cannot pull his eyes away.

He _must_ be Lord Merick. That head crowned by curls is set so proudly on a strong neck.

But the man's eyes do not linger on Lady Roxanne, waiting on her uncle's arm to be presented. 

The bright sunlight flooding into the hall creates sharp shadows - Eggsy has used the interplay of light and dark himself to add to the dramatic appeal of his tumbling in torchlit halls, and should not be so surprised that another might do the same - and out of them comes a man, taller even than Russet, who speaks a greeting in a tone so low it sets Eggsy's bones to shaking. Daisy looks up at him in alarm, but remembers the comfort of the bread wedged between her chest and his. "Welcome to Lindsey, my honoured guests. I am Lord Merick."

Eggsy can see the miniver trimming of Lady Roxanne's cloak trembling, and the lord's bright eyes must catch the motion as well, for they soften. Lord Merick steps forward and lifts Lady Roxanne's small hand all the way to his lips. 

Eggsy likes the kindness of the gesture, but Lady Roxanne clutches more firmly at Sir Percival with her other arm, and Russet's stony expression does not lighten at all. Is he the castellan, the advisor, or the hired sword, that he looks so fierce at Lord Merick's gallantry? Eggsy has only just now heard of Lord Merick, but surely someone would have mentioned had the lord had a brother so eager to defend every inch of his home, and the two men look nothing alike aside from both being tall and striking.

"Sir Percival, Lady Roxanne," Lord Merick says evenly, holding out his free hand in a gesture of welcome, "please, take your comfort. You must have travelled long." 

Sir Percival waits for Lord James to step forward and offer his arm to Lady Roxanne before bowing politely to Lord Merick. "We have, my lord, with much to discuss."

"Then let us break bread together," Lord Merick says as if he desires nothing more, though Eggsy can see that the stiffness in his shoulders eases only when Russet comes to stand by his side. Perhaps they _are_ brothers after all.

*

Eggsy had expected to make do with a bowl of pottage in the kitchen, but Lord Merick had waved him to a seat at the table and called for honeyed milk to be brought for Daisy. She's so quick to drain the cup, and the servants so attentive to their lord's every gesture, that Eggsy is able to start his own meal of trout in green sauce only a few minutes behind the rest and allow Daisy to start more slowly on a second cup.

The consideration again makes Eggsy like the new lord, whose quiet, watchful courtesy reminds him of Sir Percival. But Lady Roxanne is too pale, eating without any evidence of enjoyment or even awareness of the others at the table. Lord Merick sups steadily, equally silent though his eyes fall on each of them in turn, lingering longest on his bride. Russet and Sir Percival apparently have nothing to say to each other. It is into this silence that Lord James has evidently deemed it his duty to charge headlong.

"Lord Merick, your reputation as a lover of the arts precedes you," Lord James says, drawing a fixed, suspicious stare from Russet and an amiable nod from Lord Merick. Eggsy looks up as well, sated on his food and able now to appreciate the colourful hangings on the walls, a testament to both how much the lord prizes the decorative arts and the skill of his weavers. "But a lord such as yourself must have pursued more active endeavours as well?"

Russet's voice must be made of gold. It is the only explanation Eggsy can find for how every word he speaks sounds like a treasure. To think that Eggsy had been wondering if Russet, with his speaking glower, were mute. "Lord Merick has no equal with the longbow or the sword and is well-versed in all aspects of warfare," Russet says crisply, and Eggsy cannot drag his eyes from the man's face, not even to look at the praised lord, whose big hand he can see on Russet's shoulder.

Lord James asks, "Were you a Crusader, or did you exercise your skills in mêlée tournaments?" There _cannot_ be a challenge in the question - Lord James has helped to bring bride and bridegroom together, after all, and was a Crusader himself - but Russet sneers and pushes forward against his lord's restraining hand.

Despite his friend, Lord Merick answers calmly, the deep rumble of his voice lending a gravity to his words. "I was not prepared to swing my sword in play at a tourney, nor to leave my home to find war elsewhere," he says. His voice is like the cloth he wears, so dark a green as to appear nearly black: rich and rare.

Sir Percival finally speaks. "Would you object to testing your steel against mine?" Lord Merick smiles his agreement, and Eggsy can see that Lord James is as confident in Sir Percival's victory as Russet is in Lord Merick's; he is uncertain what the outcome will be and only hopes that the two of them remember that the combatants are engaged in a friendly match and not all-out war.

*

Designed to be brighter and kept to smell sweeter this castle may be, but it's also much colder than the places Eggsy's used to; the winds seem to howl more fiercely here. Daisy is shivering helplessly even when Eggsy keeps her pressed to his chest, their mother's blanket tucked tightly around her. Her little whimpers are hurting him to listen to.

The stone steps are like ice beneath his feet, but the great hall is already warmer than the chambers above, its massive fire banked down to dull red embers that lend the space some heat. Daisy's settling, a little less fretful now, and he keeps her cradled against his chest as he lies as close to the hearth as he dares.

Near dark as it is and sleepy as he feels with Daisy's lulling weight pressed against him, he can still make out the singular voices of Russet and Lord Merick. He had not seen them in the gloom filling the expanse of the great hall, and evidently they have missed him as well. The clinking of their cups tells him of one reason for their diminished attention.

"Merlin," Russet says, the gold of his voice turned to soft threads, woven so that the night sounds beautiful, "let the men say what they will - I will face every knight in her retinue in single combat as soon as the cock crows - you do not have to wed the girl."

"Harry," Lord Merick - Merlin, Eggsy realises, for Merick of Lindsey, and well-named as such, for his eyes are as bright and piercing as the falcon's - rumbles in return, "is she not a copy of her mother?"

Harry sounds out of charity when he snorts. "A copy in miniature. She is but a child, an ill-tempered and sullen child. And Lady Margery was fairer, I think."

"Lady Roxanne is not ill-tempered. Most likely the poor child was scared; she's not used to men -"

"Though she smiled very prettily for that peasant boy, the little tumbler." The gold of Harry's voice has sharpened into a dagger. Eggsy, already reeling from the unkind assessment of Lady Roxanne, feels its stabs when Harry speaks of him like he has no right even to crawl upon the earth. "I understand they've decided between them that he is to stay as her _comfort_ once she is mistress of all your lands."

There is a long silence. Eggsy will not cry out to defend himself; instead, he holds his sleeping sister a little more tightly, pressing his lips to her hair. 

"You trust too easily," Harry finally says, full of sorrow.

"With my sweet friend to guard me, where is the danger?" Lord Merick says, low and steady, as if whatever they are drinking cannot make him loud and brutal the way Dean always got. "Come, we have only a scant few hours before dawn."

"Will you really cross swords with Sir Percival?"

"There is no harm in a friendly match. It was not he who denied me his sister's hand." Lord Merick had wanted to marry Lady Margery, then; Eggsy wonders if Lady Roxanne knows.

"They none of them deserve you," Harry says, quiet again, and Eggsy hears them rise and ascend the cold stone steps.

*

There are people everywhere, which is both exhilarating and unnerving. Lord Merick is a great lord, apparently, going by the number of men training in the outer bailey in orderly rows under the instruction of some knights; he must be a favourite of the king's, a baron or better. Eggsy wonders if Sir Percival would have liked to teach hopeful pages and squires, only there were no boys desperate enough to consider Lord Chester a proper mentor. He's got Daisy bound to his chest, facing out this time, so she can't wriggle down and crawl over unfamiliar territory, and he moves slowly enough to let them both get a good look at the men at work.

Some of the boys are younger even than he is, but they're comfortable with their swords, like they were born reaching for them. One of the drill-masters shouts a command and they step forward in unison, all moving their sword arms up at the same angle. It's like a dance, and Eggsy considers what the appropriate music could be. 

He's whistling something that sounds like bridle bells and bright horns and patting Daisy's little feet to the rhythm of hoofbeats when he sees Russet - Harry - behind the rows of squires, whirling and meeting Lord Merick's quarterstaff with his, the two of them evidently evenly matched, at least as long as they are moving at half-speed. Harry's scarlet tunic is turning up at the edges and his face is wearing a smile that looks like all the day's sunshine caught and held in one place, and Eggsy, despite himself, understands how a sunflower must yearn. Daisy, either from recognition of the two men or from the increased energy she's had lately, gives her best kick and a hearty bellow at that moment, and both men stop their drill to look over. Lord Merick's smile, Eggsy notes, is nowhere near as bright as Harry's, but it lasts far longer. He returns it as best he can, waves to Lord Merick by manipulating Daisy's little hand, and keeps walking, reasoning that sooner or later he will find himself at the stables.

He does not want to hear whatever insults Harry will come up with for him this morning. It should not be possible for one mouth to spit those kinds of words and also to smile so sweetly.

He follows his nose to the stables and finds Bower happily bedded down in insulating hay; one whiff of the fragrant air and Eggsy resolves to sleep with Bower to keep Daisy properly warm. Bower, affectionate as ever, lips at Daisy's hair and nudges Eggsy companionably with her soft nose. He laughs a little, stroking down the length of it. Daisy reaches up and tries to speak when Bower blows warm air onto her hand.

Lady Roxanne and Sir Percival find him still there, giving Bower the treat of a thorough rubdown; she's due some spoiling, having kept up with the horses and not complained whenever Eggsy had to shift to accommodate Daisy's squirming. "Eggsy," Sir Percival asks, "have you and Daisy broken your fast this morning?"

"No, sir," he admits. He'd wanted to feed Daisy, of course, but first he needed to not be found sleeping in the great hall. He doesn't know any of the kitchen workers, who might have a soft fruit or some milk for the baby, and isn't sure whether they'll continue their lord's generosity. 

"Come along, then," Lady Roxanne says, smiling at Daisy, who tries to bite hungrily at her fingers; Daisy seems to be growing by the minute, before Eggsy's very eyes, and he has to be better about keeping her belly full. "Uncle, we will be along shortly to cheer you to victory."

"Sweetling," Sir Percival says - Eggsy can see how much it means to him to have someone to call by sweet names and look at with joy in his eyes, understands it because Daisy has been his treasure since she was born - "your intended is a good man. And it is only a friendly contest, not even a wager."

Lady Roxanne looks at him for a long time, as if she's turning over every word to find any hidden meanings. She bows her head. "Yes, Uncle, but I will cheer you while I am yet a maid." She smiles resolutely and turns to Eggsy. "Come, let's find a proper meal for this pretty girl and her talented brother."

The walk back to the castle is not long with Daisy babbling as melodically as the nearby brook, though it is only now that Eggsy notes the watchmen posted strategically around the bailey. 

On the table in the great hall are new loaves, a bowl of the green sauce from the previous night, a golden wheel of cheese, and a trencher piled high with fruits. Eggsy unwinds the binding on his sister and sets her on his lap, her little legs straddling one of his thighs and her back resting against his belly. One arm around her middle, he searches until he finds a very ripe pear and hands it to Daisy, who is getting better at grasping and holding things, even if she tries to bring everything in her hands to her mouth, whether it is food or not. With his free hand, he dips his bread in the sauce and eats, careful not to spill into Daisy's hair. Finishing his meal quickly with an apple and a wedge of cheese, he's trying to coax Daisy into letting him turn the pear so she won't keep gnawing on the stem in the centre when Harry and Lord Merick enter the hall. Eggsy sees them before Lady Roxanne does, and rises respectfully, catching the pear when Daisy, startled by the movement, drops it.

"Sweet chuck," Lord Merick says, fingers gentle on Daisy's sticky cheek, waving Eggsy to sit back down, and Eggsy smiles up at him, grateful that the lord's generosity from the day before is indeed carrying over. Sir Percival was right, after all, that Lord Merick is a good man.

Harry moves forward sharply, as if Eggsy, seated with a babe sprawled over him, is a threat to his lord. "What is your daughter's name?"

Lady Roxanne is the one who informs him, "His _sister's_ name is Daisy. His own is Eggsy. They'll be making their home here after the wedding." Eggsy would shoot her a thankful look - he doesn't know what would have come out of his mouth at being questioned by one who evidently is determined to believe the worst of him - but all of his attention is still on Harry, who looks surprised to be so openly challenged by his lord's bride and then by the information she has presented. 

"Daisy," Lord Merick says, "is a bonny name for a bonny babe." His big hands cup her face and she babbles excitedly up at him, reaching for his nose but happily taking his finger when that's offered instead. Lady Roxanne goes still, her eyes caught on her lord's face like prey transfixed by its predator, and Eggsy, trying to look away to give her some privacy, finds himself captured by Harry's gaze instead.

Harry's eyes have light behind them - that gold that's inside him, probably - and they're wide and bright, fixed on Eggsy's face; he's sure he has green sauce on his cheek. Daisy is still going strong, and Eggsy, grateful to duck away, bends enough to put his chin on top of her head. Lord Merick smiles approvingly at the two of them and eases his finger out of Daisy's grasp, breaking the spell that's enveloped the hall and kept it silent but for a baby's babbling and a great lord's responding murmurs.

*

Amelia, one of the kitchen girls, corners him one day when he's giving Daisy her milk - sweetened, as always, by a generous dollop of honey, and Eggsy needs to find the beekeeper and thank him - to say, "I've my eye on that basket."

He's getting used now to people coming over to admire his sister - Lord Merick makes time for her each morning, a sharp-eyed Harry trailing reluctantly along - and it takes him a moment to understand what she's saying. "What? Daisy's basket?" It's still lined with the blanket their mother made when Daisy was in her belly, and Eggsy treasures the memory of those long sweet hours when it was just him and his mother tucked up somewhere warm. That blanket is the last thing he ever got from her, other than her deathbed kiss and Daisy herself, shaking and mewling like a lost lamb.

"It's just the right size for hauling fowl. And she's outgrown it anyway." Amelia is intimidatingly practical and Eggsy cannot find the words to tell her how hard he had worked to earn the coins for that gathering basket or what the cloth lining it means, but he has to say something to get her proprietary fist off the handle.

"I cannot part with it," he says, though he knows she is right that it is too small for Daisy to travel in it anymore. Still, it will serve as a place for her to keep all of the treasures her admirers - Lord Merick foremost among them - bestow upon her. The sack in Bower's stall is no fitting place for them.

Daisy finishes her milk and stands on increasingly steady feet. Amelia huffs and leaves with the empty cup, but Eggsy is too absorbed in watching his sister to worry over her departure. Daisy's still wobbly, not quite sure of her balance, and Eggsy thinks this must be what he looked like when he first began to tumble, when he had a rope around his waist and the other end looped over the branches and around the trunk of a great oak, to buy himself some safety when he launched his body into the air, flipping and then trying to find his footing among the roots. Daisy's hands press against his as if she is ready to push off and run, but he's not ready for her to go, and keeps hold of her. She laughs when she collapses against him, more when he pretends her weight is enough to knock him over and she crawls triumphantly on top of his belly.

"Oof, Daisy," he protests, delighting in her evident joy. "Too strong for me, you are. Lord Merick should have you leading his army, training all those brave lads." His father might have been one such; his mother never said, but Eggsy had imagined much, not least a father of surpassing courage and gallantry, a proper knight.

Daisy makes herself comfortable on top of him, babbling again. Eggsy braces her, frowning when he can hear something else when she pauses for breath. It's a melody, surpassingly sweet, and he rises and scoops up Daisy, who appears equally enchanted.

Eggsy comes to a dead stop when he sees the telltale flash of scarlet. It is _Harry_ making that beautiful music, his big hands skilfully plucking at his lap-harp's strings and that golden voice issuing from his swan-like throat. Harry is Lord Merick's _bard_ , a master musician and storyteller who has earned a place in the house and by the side of a lord famed for his patronage of artists. No wonder Harry had sneered at Eggsy's simple rhymes and brainless tumbling. 

Harry sounds like an angel come to earth when he sings plaintively of a love that has yet to be requited. _Bituene Lyncolne ant Lyndeseye, Norhmptoun ant Lounde, ne wot I non so fayr a may, as y go fore ybounde. Suete lemmon, Y preye the thou lovie me a stounde; Y wole mone my song on wham that hit ys on ylong._ Whoever the maid is, Eggsy cannot but believe she will joyfully return a love such as this.

The very fair picture Harry makes is broken when his eyes snap open at Daisy's brave attempt to sing along. Those eyes are furious and dark, and Eggsy takes a step back and raises a shoulder to shield Daisy, but Harry neither rises nor shouts. Harry stays still, examining both of them in silence while his eyes lighten until they are once more the colour of honey. 

"Pardon," Eggsy finally says, and Harry's long fingers briefly squeeze his poor little harp at the word. "We did not mean to disturb you."

"No matter," Harry says, his gaze fixed on Daisy, recumbent in Eggsy's arms. "Perhaps it is not the best song for a wedding celebration after all." Daisy reaches out for Harry, but Eggsy, loath to break this fragile peace and unsure whether Harry would be willing to lay aside his lap-harp in any case, turns her in his arms and pillows her heavy head with his shoulder.

Focused as he is on settling his sister, he's surprised when Harry speaks again. "Though I do not know if I know even a single song of love triumphant." Harry's plucking idly at the strings when Eggsy looks at him once more, and even the accidental melody he's making is lovelier than anything Eggsy's ever sung. Daisy sighs contentedly at the sound, like it is wrapping her up safer and warmer than Eggsy's arms ever have.

"A wish for their joy should suit just as well," he ventures when he realises Harry is waiting for an answer. It is not as though a lowly jongleur could name a song that a great bard did not know.

*

"Sir Percival," Eggsy says, "I have a great favour to beg of you." Sir Percival and Lord James both look up from the chessboard with interest. Even here, the skill of Lord Merick's craftsmen is evident; the light and dark wooden pieces are beautifully carved, the board painstakingly fashioned.

"Ask, Eggsy. I would like to pay back some of what I owe you for Lady Roxanne's evident contentment." Eggsy wishes at that moment that Sir Percival were not quite so good with words, because being thanked for being Lady Roxanne's willing pupil as she taught him his letters and for leaving his sleeping sister under her watchful eye every time she asks is a new level of mortification for him. He knows she stays so busy to keep herself out of Lord Merick's way, but Lady Roxanne does not allow Sir Percival to see how much her duty - nay, her bridegroom - frightens her.

"No, please," he says feebly, and Sir Percival nods mercifully even as Lord James's mouth opens on what is sure to be a jest. Eggsy hurries on before Lord James can speak. "I had not thought not to see my friends again, but since I will be staying here, it is unlikely that we will ever meet more. I hoped to send them payment for the favours they did me. Would you carry the coins?" The chink of them shifting inside their leather purse is a music all its own.

"Very willingly," Sir Percival says graciously.

"Uncle," Lady Roxanne calls, and enters the chamber.

"Lady Roxanne," Eggsy says, alarmed, "is Daisy - who is -" He halts when he sees her unhurried movements, realising all must be well with his sister.

Tucked up safely against Sir Percival's side, Lady Roxanne assures him, "Daisy is with Elaine, and a better nurse you will not find. It was Elaine who shooed me off when I mentioned not having seen Uncle today."

"Thank you, m'lady. I -" he stops, not sure how to proceed.

"Who should get your coins?" Lord James prompts.

"Ryan - the lame boy in Lord Chester's kitchen. He tended to Daisy for me when I had to travel, never asked for anything in return but a show of juggling." He hadn't even been very good, couldn't make a show worth Ryan's patient care of Daisy. "Half for him, and the rest for Adam at the abbey."

Lord James sits up straighter, interested now. "The Saracen boy? What service did he render you?"

This is harder to say, but he needs to do it, else Adam might refuse the coins. "The man that got Daisy" - he will not speak his name - "thought he would run off one night with all that he could carry from the abbey, candlesticks and altarpieces and the like, and near tore Bower to shreds when she dug in her heels and wouldn't budge with him on her back."

"The stripes on your jenny's neck?" Lord James asks, just as Sir Percival says, "I did not know you named her Bower," and smiles as if he too remembers the day Daisy first adored him.

"Adam said he'd worked with horses in his home, he had a medicine to ease her pain. She healed up good as new, never bit him or anything. So." Sir Percival takes the purse without needing another word and squeezes his arm.

"Was the thief caught?" Lady Roxanne asks, her voice level as her brows.

"Hanged, m'lady," Eggsy answers, and she nods. Both the knights nod as well, and Eggsy, glad he didn't miss his chance to repay his debts as the days rush along and the wedding draws nearer, leaves to find his sister, who's got Elaine and all the other weavers wrapped around her little finger.

Grey-haired Elaine has Daisy on her feet, steadied with her own gnarled and colour-stained hands, and Daisy is taking tentative, not quite independent steps toward a crouching woman perhaps five years older than he. The woman is as pretty as Lady Roxanne, with sky-bright eyes and hair of the same gold as his mother's, though she is wearing thick working clothes and has tucked most of her hair into a knot at her nape.

The woman looks around when Daisy spots him and heads in his direction instead. Properly on her feet, she is quite tall. Eggsy steps forward and swings Daisy up to his hip so that Elaine does not have to keep bent over; she's had a lifetime of hunching over the dyeing vats and looms, no doubt, and doesn't need to spend her leisure doing more of the same. "I'm Eggsy, Daisy's brother," he introduces himself shyly, not knowing if he should know her by sight; she has none of the same stains on her skin or clothing as the weavers and dyers, but she is evidently at home with them.

"My name is Tilde," she says, smiling at him and Daisy both. "I am the beekeeper."

"Ah, then this one is your best customer," Eggsy says, jiggling Daisy and making her laugh.

*

Just as he was surprised by the number of men under Lord Merick's command, Eggsy is startled by the droves of people who come to watch their lord marry. The crowd outside the church is easily three times as large as any fair he's worked, and merrier besides. There are minstrels playing pipes and beating drums, and there is a hearty cheer when the priest comes out to the church steps to ask Lady Roxanne and Lord Merick whether they are free to wed. Lady Roxanne is in the blue gown Eggsy once saw her embroidering, the yellow and white daisies she worked at the neckline softly glowing. Lord Merick wears a tunic of the deepest blue; if she looks like the sea and its foam, he is the darkest depths of it. The top of her head, crowned with a rosemary wreath, does not reach as high as his shoulder; in the one glimpse of her that Eggsy manages, she looks small and perfect, like an ivory miniature.

There are too many people jostling him, all straining to see as the vows are exchanged and Lord Merick slides a ring onto Lady Roxanne's finger, and Eggsy, mindful of Daisy, backs away from the crowd to buy some breathing room. Daisy is as good as gold, bright-eyed and content in his arms, and Eggsy nuzzles at her, all dressed up in the finest Elaine and her fellow weavers could devise. 

Sir Percival somehow manages to get a hand on him when the church doors are opened, and Eggsy and Daisy stand with Lady Roxanne's family as the mass is said. Opposite him, he sees Harry, evidently the bridegroom's only family, and watches Harry's white face as the priest gives Lord Merick the kiss of peace and the lord gives it in turn to his new wife. Eggsy cannot think of what Harry's stricken face means, not when strong hands - Lord James's - are lifting Daisy away and placing her in Lady Roxanne's arms; Lady Roxanne and Harry are the only ones who look less than jubilant at this wish for the fertility of the newly made union. Daisy seems to enjoy the attention but coos happily when she's nestled again in Eggsy's arms.

Lord Merick has his arm wrapped protectively around Lady Roxanne, but she does not look up at any of the thronging well-wishers until Harry bends his bright head to kiss his liege lord's ring.

*

The marriage feast sees nearly every guest packed into Lord Merick's great hall, happily anticipating the spiced meats, savouries, and sweets to come. Eggsy does not know how he missed the rushes underfoot being plaited with roses, but the perfume they give off as they are crushed under so many soles is heady enough that he feels drunk on their scent. Daisy, too, is lolling against his chest, the green hair ribbon he'd tied into her sparse curls just slipping free.

He carries her toward the stables, singing softly to her, and is surprised, when he makes it there, to find that they have picked up a pack of followers. All children, the eldest no more than eight summers, all smiling entreatingly at him to sing again. They're scrubbed and polished for the wedding, poor mites, and Eggsy needs to earn his keep, no matter how generous Lady Roxanne and her wedded husband have been. He squeezes Daisy into her basket and sets it down next to Bower, whose tail swishes to assure him she'll play guard, then gets the children to clear some space so he can tumble for their amusement. He follows their progress, walking on his hands, and they cheer.

It is only later, when he has gathered them into a circle and is accompanied by their claps, singing a song he makes up with each of their names worked into it, that he realises that he is missing Harry's performance, which is sure to have the entire great hall spellbound.

He could do with something to slake his thirst, so he herds the laughing children back into the great hall. Harry is holding the crowd captive with a song that sounds like warm days of ease, like there's time enough to just look at the sky and feel happiness. It is better than a love song, so sweetly does he sing it. There are smiles all around; Lord James looks particularly taken by the song, and lets his fingers inch toward Sir Percival's hand. Eggsy is transfixed as well, though he tries to tell himself he's holding so still only so that Daisy, sound asleep in her basket, will not awaken. It feels like lightning striking his chest when Harry looks up at him, not needing to watch how his long fingers weave the lap-harp's strings, and holds his gaze.

He only realises that the song is done when Harry's creamy eyelids drop down, dark lashes resting against his cheek, and abruptly becomes aware of himself, gawking like a simpleton as if the song were for him rather than to celebrate the wedding of the man Harry loves most. He looks up, and Lord Merick wears a sweet smile though his eyes are troubled, perhaps because of the distance Lady Roxanne has kept between them. "Eggsy," she calls, and he starts, trudging up to the table on the platform, where he is used to breaking his fast with her. He is looking for a space in which to set Daisy's basket down when Lord Merick takes it gently out of his hands, peering inside to look on Daisy, slumbering and rosy-cheeked.

"M'lady," Eggsy says, kissing her hand. "A lovely wife you make." That sounds right, at least he thinks so, but he is dizzy from the song and his own thirst, and he has never been in such close acquaintance with the nobility on such an occasion.

Lady Roxanne does not acknowledge his compliment, so he must have got it wrong somehow. He would apologise, but Sir Percival pats him kindly on the shoulder. "Eggsy, on this occasion, take this gift from the bride and use it in the best of health and the best of times." The sharp green smell of rosemary from her crowning wreath is thick in the air, drowning out even the scents of spiced food and crushed roses, when she leans close to hand him the gift, wrapped in thick cloth that is itself worth many coins. It must be bad luck to refuse a bride's gift, but he has never heard of this custom and does not know how he can properly decline. He unwraps the soft cloth – river-blue with scarlet threads like feathers dotted through it – to find a lap-harp, the wood polished until it looks like silk.

"My lady," he protests. It should be for him to gift her, surely, rather than the other way round. But the harp - it is a twin to Harry's - gleams in the torchlight, delighting his eyes, and he cannot stop himself from stroking its strings, lightly, reverently. What she's given him is his livelihood, for the rest of his life, long after he can no longer tumble; Daisy will never be hungry again. Some of the pinched look leaves Lady Roxanne's face at the sound of the touched strings, and he smiles at her, gladdened when she smiles back, wide enough to be real. 

"And, and my lord," he remembers to say, looking up at Lord Merick's keen eyes. "I cannot thank you enough."

"You already sing so beautifully, and I always wish for more music," Lord Merick says kindly, as if he's heard Eggsy doing anything more than singing quick snatches of songs to soothe Daisy. "Oh, she's stirring."

Eggsy reaches into the basket to pick up Daisy, who is just rousing, only to nearly drop her when a roar goes up from one corner of the great hall. The clamour - guests who have let too much wine and ale and rich food go to their heads - resolves itself into words when the men approach the high table, weaving drunkenly and shouting with great vigour.

Daisy starts squalling, unhappy with sudden loud noises, and Lady Roxanne looks like she wishes she could do the same. He turns and the men's faces are red and sweaty, but not mean-spirited; he's not sure he understands Lady Roxanne's dismay. 

Until they are close enough for him to understand their slurred words and see their drunken actions. They are shouting promises to bring Lord Merick some bride's broth, and they are intent on tearing the lucky garter from Lady Roxanne's very person. Lord Merick, Sir Percival, and Lord James all look furious, but, trapped as they are between the bench and the table, they can do nothing but shield her with their broad bodies. Lady Roxanne, sheltered between them, looks smaller than ever, and Eggsy, still holding his wailing sister, wishes he could defend her too. Lord James attempts to put a stop to their demands by seizing the garter himself - though he has no wife on whose fidelity he depends for his happiness - and raising it high above his head so all can see, but the men, too drunk to be discouraged, simply keep chanting about bride's broth and Lord Merick's luck in wedding such a beauty to warm his bed. "She'll breed ready enough," the loudest man assures the rest.

At their words, hordes of the revellers' more sober fellows join them in crowding the high table to wish the couple good health, and Eggsy feels Daisy being pressed too tightly to his chest. She is screaming and crying now, but no one can hear her in all the hubbub; he has to get her away from the throng. He can see his lovely new lap-harp and its wrappings being jostled by the crowd's every movement, but he doesn't have a hand to spare to save it, and the good men in front of him are rightly guarding Lady Roxanne and paying it no mind. A hand shoots out to catch it just when his harp is sent tipping over the edge of the table, a large, strong hand at the end of a scarlet sleeve. Harry, when Eggsy twists his head to thank him, is looking not at him nor at the lap-harp and cloth, but at Lord Merick, who is gazing steadily back.

It must be useful, in situations as noisy as this, to be able to speak silently; Harry and Lord Merick do it all with stares and a nod and a blink. "My honoured guests!" Lord Merick calls, that deep voice cutting through the raucous chatter. "Pray give us leave to retire." 

Eggsy can hear the drunken chuckling of the most boisterous men and the delighted whispers of the boldest women, sees Lord James and Sir Percival each fondly clasp an arm or shoulder of Lady Roxanne's before nudging her to follow her bridegroom. Lord Merick's face is completely blank, and Lady Roxanne, her hand dwarfed by his, looks like nothing will induce her to raise her eyes ever again. Her uncle and his friend step between the retreating pair and their rowdy followers, granting the couple some privacy.

Eggsy wants to follow, to remind Lady Roxanne of all of Lord Merick's kindnesses and relieve her fears, but finds himself drawn back by a firm hand on his elbow. "Come, Eggsy," Harry says, and Eggsy, laying one hand on Daisy's quivering cheek and hearing her cries soften, goes.

*

Harry does not touch him as they weave through the throng to leave the great hall; Harry is carrying both lap-harps and Eggsy is carrying Daisy, who is shuddering and trying to rub her wet face on his chest, and has the handle of her basket looped around his arm. Still, Eggsy can feel the heat of Harry at his back, and it is comforting.

"Where will you go?" Harry asks, once they can speak without having to shout. 

"We sleep in the stables," Eggsy says, then remembers that he'd meant to keep that a secret. Harry shifts on his feet, clearly waiting for an explanation. "Daisy needs warmth and the castle is too cold."

It is too dark in the outer bailey to see Harry's face. "Very well. You have not eaten, have you?"

"No." He is famished now that he thinks of it, and the smells of good food are only taunting him now.

"Will you trust me to secure your gift?" Harry asks, and Eggsy cannot make out what the bard thinks of the new harp.

"Yes," he says, surprised. Harry has the right reverence for the instrument, of course, and if he is keeping it with his own, Eggsy can have no cause for complaint. He does not know where he could keep such a prize in the stables anyhow.

Daisy cries out plaintively when Harry heads back inside the castle, as if she has come to depend on the comfort of his presence, but Harry does not look back or return. Eggsy, feeling foolish for waiting for some acknowledgement, cuddles her close and kisses the top of her head by way of consolation. She's restive, though, and only settles when he whistles her favourite birdsong; with every step he takes, he feels her grow heavier in his arms.

She's fast asleep again by the time he greets Bower and arranges the straw in the stall to his liking. He's got her swaddled fast in her basket and is pulling some of the straw over himself when a dark shape appears at the entrance to the stall, too tall for him to doubt despite the limited light. "Harry?" he asks anyway.

"Yes." The man's voice - gold again - is clipped and short, but Eggsy needs no treasure just then other than the bounty of food Harry sets out on wooden trenchers. There are loaves and meats and fowl and fruits and cheese, and Harry has brought a bottle that turns out to be half-empty, just enough to wet their mouths. Tumbling and singing are hungry work, and they tear through the food like they've not eaten in days rather than hours. The taste of the honeyed wine makes Eggsy look guiltily toward Daisy, still sleeping, who's missed her nightly cup of milk in all the excitement, and Harry takes the bottle back silently. 

There is so little left when they have sated themselves that it all fits on one trencher and can be covered by the other. Eggsy is thinking happily that the leftover bread and cheese and apples will make for a hearty breakfast when Harry, having finished the last mouthful of wine, begins piling straw over his long legs.

"Harry?" he asks, confused, wishing for more light to see just what is happening.

"I -" Harry's voice is uncertain in the dark. "My bed is next to the bridal chamber. I thought to grant them privacy." He sounds bitterly unhappy. 

Eggsy reaches out before he can think about what he's doing. "It's good that they're wed, isn't it?" Harry's breath warms his hand.

"The lady is half his age, terrified of his strength, and will shatter him with the first unkind word." Harry sounds certain now. "He deserves better."

"The lord is kind and patient and already looks only to admire. She will see him as he is."

"She does not love him." Still, Harry does not shake off his hand.

"You sang of happiness, not love." Harry's shoulder goes still with his surprise, and there is a long moment of silence, only the sounds of horses whickering and Bower's soft breaths swirling in the warm air between them. Eggsy cannot tell why, when Harry moves suddenly, his hand clutches at the scarlet fabric instead of just letting go.

"What do you know of love, Eggsy?" Harry asks, low and soft, his voice like a golden summer rainfall. "Do you know what they are doing right now?"

"No," he says into the hush. He knows that the lord is bedding his new bride, but he has no knowledge beyond the word. He's seen stallions mounting mares and the foals that result, but that kind of coupling cannot be all there is to it when nobles wed; Lady Roxanne had been so scared.

Harry's hand, large and strong, cups his skull. "Shall I show you?" he asks, and Eggsy shivers in the heat.

*

Eggsy wishes for a thousand torches, though he knows the sight of Harry's honeyed eyes and tumbling curls would only confuse him the more. His voice will not work properly, as if it too has been blindfolded by the darkness.

"Shall I?" Harry asks, the tip of his nose nuzzling Eggsy's cheek so gently. "Shall I play the husband?"

He whimpers, the sound lost when Harry touches their mouths together. Harry tastes like the wine he brought, sweet and sharp, and Eggsy's mouth falls open of its own accord. Is this what Lady Roxanne is feeling even now, her husband's mouth spiced by wine, playing delicately with hers? Harry is so careful, moves so slowly, that Eggsy is sprawled on top of him before he knows how it happened. The hand that is still cupped around his head is dragging slow fingertips through his hair, and Eggsy closes his eyes, sets his cheek against Harry's, and just breathes. This is nothing to fear; Lady Roxanne must have been misinformed.

He shifts so that his knees are bracketing Harry's slim waist, freezing when he hears Harry make a noise sweeter than music. "Harry?" he asks before Harry's hands are on his face and his mouth is sucked hungrily. He can scarcely think, but he must still be speaking, because Harry stops and holds himself as still as a saint's statue when he hears the word "no."

"No?" Harry asks, sounding strained. Eggsy is flipped, suddenly, to his back, and Harry rolls his warm weight off him. 

Eggsy reaches out for him, in the dark, but Harry's hard hand pushes him away. Eggsy feels warm all over but cannot be deterred from seeking Harry's heat; he slips under the forbidding arm to cuddle in close and speaks into Harry's swan neck. "No, this cannot be what Lady Roxanne feels, as Lord Merick has no indentations from harp strings on his fingertips. And we are not wed. So you cannot play the husband."

Harry's breathing quickens, as if to match Eggsy's thundering heart. "Shall I play the sweetheart, then?"

Eggsy kisses the slim, strong neck against which his lips have been resting. "Yes, Harry."

"A husband" - Harry says between the wet kisses he is dropping on Eggsy's throat - "would have" - cheek - "more light" - mouth - "than this."

Eggsy whimpers, because he needs no light to remember how beautifully shaped Harry's mouth is, and feeling it against his skin is better by far than simply seeing it. It's too dangerous to have a torch in the stables anyway.

"The better to adore his bride," Harry finishes, sucking hard on the taut skin of his collarbone.

Lady Roxanne might not welcome the light as a friend, when it shows her the feared man she is expected to please. Eggsy does not think he could do so much as he is doing - his hands have twined wantonly in Harry's soft hair - without the gift of darkness. "Ahhh," Eggsy says as Harry's indented fingertips find the skin beneath his rough cotte and thin chemise; his belly quivers at their touch and the skin of his chest pebbles in anticipation. "I do not wish for a husband."

Harry laughs and presses his mouth to Eggsy's belly. "Beauty cannot wish to be bound."

"It is too dark to judge my beauty." All those puzzles and riddles and jesting songs he's learnt for the benefit of the merry crowds at fairs are standing him in good stead now, the quickness he's practiced revealing itself in his wordplay. Or so he thinks before Harry makes him moan wordlessly again, biting at his belly.

"My eyes have drunk you up often enough in the daylight, but my mouth is a very fair judge too," Harry says, pulling at his braies to bare his hips. Eggsy never knew how potent teasing little nibbles at his hips could be, and he finds himself clasping Harry's head to his flesh without a care for how Harry can breathe.

"Oh, please," Eggsy begs. He does not know what he wants - a sharper bite, another kiss? Anything to resolve the feeling inside him, as if he is a knot that needs to be untied or perhaps tugged tighter. 

"Shall I please you, Beauty?" Harry asks, tugging the braies down further and dipping his head to follow, to play the uncovered flesh with his tongue and teeth and lips as if Eggsy were his harp. Eggsy learns that he can sing like one when he is in Harry's hands. 

*

Daisy's wails wake him the next morning. He cannot tell if her lusty cries are due to her missing her last meal or the length of time she has slept, but in either case he needs to rise and remove her from the stall if she is not to awaken Harry. Harry has straw in his hair and his arm around Eggsy's waist and looks so beautiful in the morning light that Eggsy thinks he should be kept by a king solely for the pleasure of the picture he makes.

He's reaching one hand out to Harry's mussed curls when Daisy squalls again. She must be wet, at least.

He picks her up and bears her, still swaddled, to the laundry. He washes the filth away and finds another length of linen to serve as a nappy after he is done dunking her in the heated water. She squeals, happily, he thinks, at the sensation but makes it clear with her little fists that she is ready for food. The bread and cheese and apples he'd imagined feeding Harry - a Harry lying at his feet and looking up at him with honeyed eyes - would not have served for his sister at all; shamed, he resolves to find her the best fruit, the best bread, and the sweetest milk this morning.

Eggsy knows the kitchens are active from before dawn, but it is still early enough that he is surprised by the number of familiar faces gathered at the high table of the great hall. Lady Roxanne is the first he sees, sitting on her own while the men cluster together at the other end of the table. As his feet eat up the length of the great hall and he draws closer, he can see that she looks tired, if not downright ill.

"Good morning, my lady," he says, as if he's noticed nothing; she is neat as ever and surely does not wish to have attention drawn to her weary, unhappy face.

"Please, may I?" she asks, and he hands Daisy over, knowing well what it is to be in need of the comfort of a babe's softness.

"What is the matter?" he asks, sorting through the fruits on the table to find a pear ripe enough for his sister. He hands it to Lady Roxanne, who has Daisy settled on her lap and reaching eagerly for her breakfast.

"A wedding night is a long night," she says wearily. "And it is not over yet. Lord Merick must accept my dowry from my uncle and pay all the entertainers and servants. My uncle must show the bloodstained sheet to the priest to have the marriage recorded by the church. And I must smile and smile as if I chose all of this." Eggsy's mind is whirling - there is so much to a marriage that he has never had to consider - but keeps getting stuck on the word _bloodstained_. What has Lady Roxanne had to endure at Lord Merick's hands, while he was imagining her sharing the bliss he felt at Harry's? 

Lord Merick, though, looks no better than his wife; he appears just as tense and unhappy, and he looks around his own home as if he is lost. Eggsy has usurped all the joy of their wedding night, with his time in Harry's arms. "Can you rest, my lady?"

"My uncle and his company take their leave today. I would wish to stay by his side for as long as possible."

"Go, then," he says, taking Daisy off her lap. "Let them have the company they must desire."

She nods, but when she rises, her step is heavy, as if her bones have doubled in weight.

Eggsy seizes another pear and flees, back to the sanctuary of the stable and Harry.

*


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is in two chapters only because I couldn't finish it in one go - there's no time shift implied by the split.

Harry is sleepy-eyed, just stirring, and smells sweet as hay when Eggsy finds him again.

The length of Harry's legs should have made sleeping in the stall a misery for him, but Harry looks relaxed and rested, his sprawl and bent limbs telling of casual comfort. Eggsy wants to bear down on him, knock his elbows out from under him, and suck kisses into his skin. 

Daisy puts an end to such fantasies, chirrupping as excitedly as Eggsy's heart at the sight of him. At his sister's sudden downward lurch, Eggsy loses his grip on the extra pear, which falls neatly into Harry's hand. Harry takes a big bite, clear juice wetting his lips. Eggsy bends to set Daisy down, one hand out to brace her as she toddles forward and manages to get close enough to Harry to wrest the pear from his surprised and unresisting grasp. Daisy grins triumphantly, showing off all of her teeth, and takes a bite out of the pear herself. It is a close thing, but Eggsy does not let himself laugh at Harry's affronted look, busying himself instead with sinking down to the ground and pulling Daisy onto his lap.

Daisy turns, presenting the pear to him, and he takes the smallest bite he can before putting it back in her hands; Daisy is shooting up as fast as the green stalk of her namesake flower and needs to eat more. Harry sits up then, reaching out to cup a palm over Eggsy's cheek. The beating of Eggsy's heart gains in speed and intensity, growing so loud that Eggsy fears he will miss it if Harry speaks any more sweet words as he had in the dark of night. It was only a few hours ago that he was lying in Harry's arms, cradled tenderly as a babe. He wants, at that moment, more than anything, to let Harry's hands hold him up, let Harry's mouth find his own. If only Lady Roxanne and Lord Merick were not so painfully hollowed out, and Sir Percival and Lord James were not on the brink of departure.

"He needs you," is all Eggsy has to say before Harry's solemn expression grows dark and he rises, ready to charge out to stand by his beloved lord's side. Eggsy, looking up, finds himself as charmed by the stalks of straw that have taken up residence in Harry's curls as he is maddened by the milk-white of Harry's throat and chest, bared and covered in turn by the sly lacings of his scarlet tunic. He has never noticed before, but at the hem is a design in red thread, finer even than Lady Roxanne's bright daisies, of a stag's head, its antlers a crown and a weapon in one. It suits Harry down to the ground, this expression of beauty and grace and shy strength.

Eggsy, tongue-tied, has to content himself with running the pads of his fingers carefully over the embroidery. Harry's fingertips catch his own, briefly, before they part, Harry to Lord Merick and Eggsy to hoist Daisy on his hip to wash her face and hands before they say good morning to Bower and bid farewell to Lord James's Lancelot and Sir Percival's white mare, as shy as she is beautiful.

*

"E is for Edward our king, for England, for Eggsy," Lady Roxanne recites, a slender finger shaping the sharp lines and points of the letter against the smoothness of wood for him to see. Her voice is bright with determined cheer, as if to erase from memory the tears she and her uncle had shed upon parting. Eggsy wants to reward her unstinting patience, but the letters are not sticking in his mind; he suspects that Daisy, on his lap, is absorbing the knowledge more readily than he is. If it were a song, he'd have no problem -

"Lady Roxanne," he asks, knowing she will not mock but hesitant all the same, "could we begin again, with a song?" Lady Roxanne's face lights up with understanding, and though she cannot truly sing she begins gamely to chant, her fingertip drawing the letters' shapes on the table.

"A is for apple, for anvil, for all. B is for Bower, for basket, for bread." When she comes to "D is for Daisy, for darling, for dear," Lady Roxanne bends to kiss Daisy's upright curls. Eggsy smiles, but Lady Roxanne does not rise, instead shifting so that her brow is pressed against his chest. It is not the action of a fine lady, and he forgets himself, raising his hand to cup her veiled head.

"What is it, my lady?" he asks, soft as summer rain. She shifts, her cheek against his chest next to Daisy's. "Can I be of service to you?"

"Can you teach me not to fear my husband?" she asks, just as quietly. Daisy is heedless, putting out her hand to play with the lady's pretty fingers, one weighted down by her broad wedding band.

"Surely," he says, because Lord Merick is nothing like Dean, will not raise a hand against her. Lord Merick is seeking a key that will unlock the door Lady Roxanne has kept closed between them, not howling for a battering ram to bring it down. "What is it you fear?"

"It is not _him_ precisely," she admits, "though I had not thought to find him so . . . rough."

"Rough?" he repeats, alarmed. She is so small, after all.

"His bared body is scarred, dark, and fierce," she says, and Eggsy knows Harry was right, that a husband provided light enough to see his new wife and be seen in his turn. He had been grateful for the dark that lent him courage, but longs now to know Harry's body by daylight. "Lady Egelina's form - yours - was soft and hairless, but Lord Merick's is roughened by hair. It is startling to behold." So it must be, for a proper lady reared by holy women, even if the lady was improper enough to peek at him when he changed his garb. "I feel delicate and fragile next to him."

"The more does he cherish you," Eggsy says, for he has seen Lord Merick's eye linger on his bride, has heard Lord Merick appreciate Lady Roxanne's beauty in discussion with Harry.

"Not fragile, then. Helpless. The terms of our marriage are all his. If I do not please him, if I do not bear him sons, he may turn me out, call the contract void. I would be immured again, locked away from the world you have begun to show me." Lady Roxanne's voice hardens as she goes.

Eggsy hastens to reassure her. "You _do_ please him, m'lady." That much he can say with certainty. The world does not feel like his to show, though he does get to see more of it than she does. And the bearing of sons is up to God, surely?

"And yet," she says, lifting her head so that her breath no longer warms his chest, "no one wonders whether _he_ pleases _me_."

*

Daisy is lovely enough to have earned all the smiles and favours she receives, but Eggsy suspects that she's taken by most as an omen that Lord Merick and his bride will be blessed with babes just as bonny and bright. He cannot say he does not wish for the same, though he does not know how such a miracle is to occur if Lady Roxanne can barely converse with her wedded lord. The man's patience must run out sooner or later, Eggsy thinks.

Much like Harry's had.

Harry has been at Lord Merick's side almost continuously since Eggsy had told him his lord had need of him, and they move so harmoniously together that it is plain to see they are easiest when in each other's company. Eggsy has not managed to catch Harry's bright eye, though he has felt a gaze upon his skin at odd times that could only be the bard's. Or perhaps he just wishes it so. He gets the same shiver up his spine when he sees Harry alone and knows quite well that Harry has not seen him. But Harry with thick, colourful cloth draped over his arms and with dust on his garments is as well worth looking at as when he is singing or smiling or conversing earnestly with his beloved friend.

Eggsy's still craning his neck and wishing he were taller, ready to drink up any glimpse of Harry, however brief it may be - Harry is forever in motion these days, it seems - when Lord Merick approaches, alone. The lord still delights in Daisy, proffering flowers and pretty leaves on his broad palm whenever he sees her. The smile he wears when she coos in response would likely be enough to make Eggsy lose his heart to the great lord, were it not already in someone else's careless possession.

"Thank you, Lord Merick," Eggsy says when Daisy's nose has been tickled by a small pink bud, the lord's big hands curiously gentle, belying the calluses that swords and bows and staves must have formed.

"Mehck!" Daisy pipes up, hand fisted around Lord Merick's forefinger. She crows when Lord Merick lifts her out of Eggsy's surprise-weakened arms, tosses her in the air, and catches her securely. Her happy squeals are enough for Lord Merick to do it once more, then twice. Eggsy is silent, slack-jawed at the realisation that Daisy has spoken her first real word. He misses his mother fiercely in that moment.

"As fearless as her brother," Lord Merick says with a smile, tucking the bud behind Daisy's ear while she pants contentedly in his arms. "A whirlwind of energy and delight."

Eggsy's mouth is still hanging open and he can feel his face heat up. Lord Merick does him the kindness of not looking at his red face, pretending instead to be as utterly absorbed in watching Eggsy's fruitless efforts to get Daisy's rampant curls to lie smoothly. "Your sweetness is a balm to his soul." Eggsy closes his eyes, silently questioning the charitable words the lord pronounces in that deep rumble of a voice. "I thank you for his smile," Lord Merick continues, then hands Daisy back. Eggsy kisses her cheek to hide his face and to reward her for speaking.

"Daisy," he murmurs into her hair, sounding lost even to his own ear.

"Zee!" she agrees, her little fists flailing around as if to inform him she'll always find him.

*

Lord Merick's assurances of ardour aside, Harry is as slippery as an eel and Eggsy cannot catch him and offer up his mouth. He would be shameless, if only Harry would let him.

Daisy keeps him quite busy enough that he cannot lie around dreaming of a hot mouth and strong hands. She will be walking - then running - any day now, and he resolves to train her to be as proper as can be before she eludes his grasp entirely.

He finds a green hazel twig soft enough that it won't hurt her, sits, and traps her - standing upright on her own two feet, with just the slightest adjustments made to keep her balance - between his knees. She knocks the back of her head into his breastbone hard to protest her lack of freedom.

"Come on, Daisy," he coaxes, trying to remember how he'd been taught, whether it was his mother or Rhiannon or someone else entirely. He would give much for a single memory of his father. "Open up." Grasping her chubby fist, which is curled over one end of the twig, he brings the soft stick up to her teeth. She's twisting, trying to see his face, then gnashing contentedly on the twig when his knees hold her fast. Together they rub the twig against her small teeth, and she seems to be fine with the sensation. "Good girl," he praises, prying the twig from her hold and turning her. With a corner of a woollen cloth Elaine has set aside for his girl, he rubs at her teeth so that they gleam.

Daisy is smiling at him around the cloth, and he forgets himself enough to linger there. Just when he thinks she will bite down on his careless finger, she presses her lips to it in the closest approximation to a kiss he's yet had from her. She is growing so fast.

He bends at the waist to press kisses to her soft brow, her round cheeks. It is not until she begins to mimic him that he realises he's begun humming. It is a new tune, something he makes as he looks at her, his darling and dear. She doesn't yet know how to breathe around a hum, and soon enough she is snorting and panting, like a miniature Bower, and he laughs. She laughs back, and he wants to keep her like this always.

*

Tilde swears that her bees will not harm Daisy, but Eggsy is unwilling to risk anything while his sister is still too young to understand not to hurt them first. When she is safely in Lady Roxanne's ready hands, he visits Tilde in her hut, only for her to chase him back out of doors, saying she wants to watch him tumble.

They come to a patch of grass flat enough for his tricks and soft enough for her to lie upon, and he does as she bids him, turning his body like a cartwheel and even dancing a little as she cheers. He flips one last time, his body feeling like a spring, and once he's right side up again sees that her laughing face is very pretty indeed; it does not seem right that the wealth of gold that is her hair does not translate into the gold of coins in her pocket, that she has to work for her bread instead of being called "my lady" by her waiting servants.

"How did Lord Merick find you?" he asks, throwing himself down beside her.

Her smile is very bright around the long stalk of grass she's chewing. "His father's father found mine, and when Lord Merick got word he was to be lord, his first action was to ask each of us if we wanted to stay to serve him or try our luck elsewhere. My family chose to stay. This land is our home too." One of her pretty hands spreads wide so that the lush summer grass and clover spring up between her fingers. Eggsy's never got attached to places so much as people - Bower counts on that score - but Tilde's a good enough storyteller that he understands the emotion.

He flips over onto his back, looking up at the bright sky, hazy with heat. "What do you mean, he got word? Was the old lord from home?"

It's as if a cloud has passed over her face. "Lord Garrick, the lord that was, went to the court with his two eldest sons, Sir Delbert and Sir Wymer, newly made knights, to see them pledge their fealty to the king. With them rode Sir Byram, who left his only child, Harry, to be raised as Lord Merick's foster-brother, as they were of an age and he had lost his wife years before. All four were killed in an attack on King Edward." It is as short a recitation as such a brutal story deserves, and Eggsy feels the breath go out of him, just listening to it.

Lord Merick was not raised with the expectation of ruling, then. Eggsy thinks it is admirable how well he has succeeded, remembers that the lord had disclaimed any joy or interest in battle. Small blame to him if he had no stomach for blood, even if ruling such a barony as Lindsey forced him to become proficient with weapons - Harry had said as much, had he not? _No equal with the longbow or the sword_ was his foster-brother's boast.

"My mother said Lord Merick was always fond of learning, but his greatest wisdom came from watching Lady Jolenta rule until he came of age." Eggsy can well believe that a woman might be fitted to rule as surely as a man - has he not seen Rhiannon's orderly kitchen, as active and industrious as Tilde's hives, and compared it favourably to the fetid hall where Lord Chester used to wallow?

"Lady Jolenta?" he asks, to be sure he's heard the name aright. A formidable woman, she sounds.

"She passed only two winters ago," Tilde says. "Lord Merick and Harry were inconsolable."

So had he been, when his own mother's eyes closed on her deathbed. Daisy had been too young to feel the loss, and he is determined she never shall know any lack. Staying here has brought her nothing but good; Lady Roxanne's devoted care is very close to a mother's, and Lord Merick's daily visits make Daisy smile so widely that all of her teeth can be counted and admired without haste.

"I must go," he says, rolling to his feet and holding a hand out to help Tilde find hers.

"Have you not time for a cup of mead?" she asks, fingers warmly curled around his.

He shakes his head. "Daisy," he says to explain, wanting nothing more than to see his sister smile at him. When he enters the great hall, he hears her chirrup, a sound she only makes when she is truly happy. Lady Roxanne is bouncing Daisy on her knee, seemingly unaware that Daisy's joy is due to seeing Lord Merick over her shoulder. The lord cups Daisy's cheek and Daisy gleefully shouts the only word she seems to know, which is his name.

Eggsy watches, transfixed, by how Lady Roxanne whirls in surprise, and Lord Merick, apparently prepared for her reaction, steadies his wife with one hand and the babe with the other. Lady Roxanne's eyes drop down, marking her accustomed retreat, but on this day Lord Merick chooses to engage her again. Eggsy strains but cannot hear whatever soft words Lord Merick is speaking, though he sees how Daisy is yearning toward the lord and settles contentedly once she is in his arms. Her lap empty, Lady Roxanne stands and, after a moment's hesitation, obeys Lord Merick's courteous gesture and leads the way to the kitchens.

Eggsy is not expecting Harry's golden voice low and soft in his ear. "I named you well when I called you Beauty."

"Harry!" he says, spinning on his heel, remembering as he blushes at his own eagerness that Lord Merick had said he made Harry happy.

It does seem to be true, going by the fond look in Harry's eyes and the way his fingers are dancing along Eggsy's waist. "Have you missed me, my dove?" Harry murmurs, and Eggsy lets himself sway a little into the solid warmth at his side. "Enough to follow me to a new world?"

"What can you mean?" he asks. He likes puzzles well enough, but not any hint that Harry might be leaving.

"Come, Beauty," Harry says, climbing the stone steps, delicate as a hart. "There is a new world for you just this way."

Eggsy is obedient, following Harry closely enough that their hands keep bumping. Harry's fingers twine through his, and it is that rather than the pitch of the steps that makes Eggsy breathless.

There are chambers in a ring, matching the circular sweep of stone that makes up the old-fashioned keep. It is evident which one belongs to Lord Merick and Lady Roxanne; there are unlit braziers flanking the door, adorned by a woven tapestry of surpassing beauty depicting a maid with Lady Roxanne's dark-gold locks and brown eyes lifting her gloved hand to welcome back her pet merlin. Eggsy wonders if this is the cloth he saw Harry carrying one day and thinks that Lord Merick is indeed pursuing the right road to wooing his wife.

Harry had said that his chamber was next to his foster-brother's. But it is to the chamber directly opposite Lord Merick's that Harry leads him now, smiling all the while. "Enter, Beauty," Harry says, so Eggsy casts one questioning glance at him and pushes at the iron-barred wooden door. There is a fine bed, heaped with pallets, and a smaller arrangement against the adjoining wall. The cloth on the big bed is scarlet, while that on the smaller one is the green that the dyers favour for his sister's clothes. He is starting to shake with his hope that he's understanding the room properly. If he and Daisy can use this room - the small bed is just large enough for Eggsy to keep Daisy tucked safely between himself and the wall - he does not have to dread the winter; there are thick cloths and sturdy braziers everywhere. He cannot comprehend, however, why a lowly jongleur who has but rarely sung or tumbled for his supper since arriving in Lindsey would be given a chamber opposite his lord's.

Eggsy raises his eyes to Harry's, knowing his confusion is plain on his face. "I do not -"

"Does it suit?" Harry asks.

"This new world?" he repeats back, though now he thinks he takes Harry's meaning. If this room is to be _theirs_ , then it will be a world new and entire. Looking again, he sees at last that the scarlet of the bedcover is the same as Harry's tunic, and a length of the same colour is wound around a pair of harps, polished so that the wood glows as if with contentment. The large chest in one corner promises all sorts of treasures.

"This new world where Beauty finds a home," Harry says, his question evident in his rising tone.

Standing there, tall and proud and yet uncertain, he is entirely irresistible, and Eggsy has no intention of resisting. He still has not figured out the trick of the angles that allows the daylight to penetrate so deeply into the castle, but he welcomes the sun as an ally; here at last is the illumination that he longed for when last he opened his lips for Harry's kisses. As if they know his thoughts, the sun's rays touch Harry, picking him out in the gold Eggsy has always heard in his voice.

"Welcome me home, then, or allow me to do so for you -" is all he manages to say before he is borne back to the bed. Harry's eyes, caught by a shaft of light, are fairly glowing, as potent as mead, and Eggsy can hear his own breath catch in his throat at the intent written across Harry's beautiful face. He reaches up to draw Harry down, welcoming the weight of him along his body. "Harry," he says, choking on the name when Harry's lips grow firm against his neck, sucking a bruise into his skin.

"You smell of grass and honey," Harry murmurs into his throat as he strips him to the waist. Eggsy shivers at that golden voice against his skin, breath stirring every fine hair. "How the sun must love to shine down on you, Beauty."

He means to tell Harry about his hours with Tilde, but instead gives himself up to the sensations of Harry's long fingers trailing along his skin, finding and caressing all of the darker spots scattered on his body. Harry leans to one side, drawing his free hand through Eggsy's hair, and Eggsy seizes the opportunity to unlace Harry's tunic. The lacings twine eagerly around his fingers as if they too are impatient, and Harry kneels up to shuck the tunic and chemise together. Harry moves to settle down again but Eggsy gets hands on both his shoulders and keeps him at bay, just so he can look his fill.

Harry is the one who should be called Beauty. His shoulders are broad, his skin is fair and smooth as cream, untroubled by all of Eggsy's odd little marks, and his shape is pleasing to the eye. Harry lets him look and then puts a finger under his chin to tip it up for another devouring kiss. The skin of Harry's back is warm and firm under his palms, and Eggsy cannot help but clutch. The sensation of Harry's bare chest against his is shattering.

Harry must know his fear that this cannot last, for he says, fiercely, "You are mine, you are home."

He cannot say it back, does not dare to lay claim to this man pleasuring his body, so he agrees, "I am yours," and then Harry possesses his mouth once more.

Doing this with daylight spilling all around them is proving to be dangerous. Eggsy's eyes keep closing in pleasure and he fights to open them so that he may take in how Harry's pale skin warms to pink, how his curls tumble against his brow, how his lips plump as if every contact with Eggsy's body is swelling them further. And then Harry is rolling them over - the width of the bed would allow at least one more complete turn - and Eggsy is astride Harry's hips, being divested of his remaining garments with a single-minded determination.

This is what he wanted, and he'll not be such a fool as to dillydally. He reaches for the lacings of Harry's braies and tugs. The prick he bares is hard, hot, and long, rivalling the scarlet cloth on which they lie for colour. Eggsy reaches for it, stroking with one cautious fingertip, and Harry moans in the back of his throat as if he will suffer grievously unless Eggsy does it again.

He does. He strokes again and again, employing his fingers and palm and - after looks both shy and daring at the picture Harry makes with his head thrown back in pleasure - even his own prick and thighs, and Harry is gasping and there are shudders rippling down his form like he's been changed to a brook. Eggsy can feel himself heating up as he goes, sweat beading on his skin in the most delicious way. There is only flesh and sunlight and he bends to taste the one dancing along the other, glorying in how very much he is wanted and how much he loves the man beneath him, to whom he has pledged himself with no word of a lie.

*

Lady Roxanne brings a cupful of sweet hazelnuts to their next lesson. Eggsy sings the song of letters all the way through and dances along, bending his body to mimic their shapes, but Lady Roxanne is paying more mind to weaving her fingers through Daisy's curls than anything he is doing. Daisy looks drowsy and dreamy on Lady Roxanne's lap and Eggsy subsides, smiling at the picture the pair of them make and picking the nuts out of the cup to eat, slowly, one at a time, each bite a treat.

Lady Roxanne must be waiting to feel Daisy's weight go slack when sleep overtakes her, because the moment Daisy's head droops, she opens her eyes wide and speaks. "Eggsy," she says, hesitantly, "I have a favour to beg."

"No need to beg, my lady," he says. "What would you have of me?"

"A kiss," she says, startling him out of his seat opposite her. He is fortunate that he has put the nuts away, else he might have choked. "Please," she entreats as he shakes his head. "I have - Lord Merick has kissed me much, in the last nights, and I wish to know how to . . ."

Eggsy cannot guess what will come next, as her voice has trailed away. If Lord Merick is keeping himself to kisses - kisses of the mouth, not the rest of the body as Harry has bestowed on Eggsy - then his patience is formidable indeed. "How to do what, my lady?"

"How to keep my wits about me when he does!" Lady Roxanne says fiercely.

Eggsy smiles then, and takes his sleeping sister out of her arms. "It is not for me to kiss my lady, my lord's bride. Put your lips to your own skin and judge for yourself whether the wit-stealing magic lies with that touch or with him." She looks up at him, lost, and he says, "Here. This is a ready spot." He tucks one arm more securely under Daisy's bottom and brings the other up, letting his mouth hover just above the inside of his wrist. Harry had driven him nearly out of his mind merely by applying his tongue to that place, endlessly, as if no other claim on his time or mouth could be made.

Lady Roxanne looks at him as though perhaps Harry finished the job and Eggsy has lost all his wits, but she shakes back her sleeve and mimics him. Her mouth is such a pretty colour against the fairness of her skin, and he sees it shape the words she must hear nightly: _I love you, wife_. She kisses her wrist, once and then again, frowning as if displeased with what she is discovering, even when she shivers as she applies her tongue and teeth to the thin skin; Lord Merick has evidently made a deep impression with the variety and abundance of his kisses. "It is not the same," she says at last, looking up with eyes that seem defeated.

"Smile, my lady," he says, pressing his mouth to the soft crown of Daisy's head to hide his own. "You are wed to a man who brings your body joy. Welcome his kisses - kiss him back."

Lady Roxanne narrows her eyes at him and says nothing, but the look on her face as she finishes the last of the hazelnuts is more settled than it had been. Eggsy cannot speak the words aloud but in his heart wishes her all of the pleasure he has found in Harry's arms and envies her that Lord Merick loves her so truly. He himself loves Harry, but knows not whether he is anything to Harry other than an adornment for his bed.

*

Eggsy is giving Bower a thorough rubdown and whistling softly to her, that tune he has had running through his mind coming readily to his lips, when Harry finds him in the stables, Lord Merick trailing closely behind.

They are striking together, longshanks the pair of them. Lord Merick smiles kindly at him while Harry allows his eyes to glitter with desire, as if he wants to eat Eggsy up.

"Eggsy," Lord Merick says, approaching to stroke Bower's pretty nose, "would your jennet be a suitable mount for Lady Roxanne?" Bower lips agreeably at his long fingers, tender against her flesh.

"Yes, my lord," Eggsy says. Bower knows Lady Roxanne and in any case is gentle enough for any lady to ride. But he does not want to see Lord Merick err, not when he is so close to winning his wife through kindness and understanding. "But Lady Roxanne can ride a larger mount without any difficulty. She seems to enjoy it."

Lord Merick is sharp enough to grasp very well what Eggsy is about and to recognise that his wife is bidding fair to follow in his mother's decisive footsteps by following her own sweet will. A smile, a slow nod of the head, and then Lord Merick is looking at the other steeds in his stables, finding two spirited horses that look very well together, a mare and a gelding. "And is she looking after your sister now?"

"No, my lord," Eggsy says demurely. "You said Elaine might keep watch over Daisy in the afternoons, that they might take their rest together." He is not going to reveal that Lady Roxanne has taken to haunting the kitchens in her bid to learn to cook the honeyed sweets that her husband favours. Eggsy has proved his worth ten times over, Lady Roxanne says, in disposing of all her less than perfect cryspels, with or without hot honey, and he has no complaints with the arrangement.

"I see," Lord Merick says, clapping Harry on the shoulder before leaving the stables. Bower whickers and Eggsy turns back to her, clucking his apologies for neglecting her.

Harry steps forward then, and Eggsy nearly goes cross-eyed trying to catch a glimpse without turning to face him. Bower helps by dancing sideways, one dainty hoof in the small space between them. "Good day, Beauty. Shall we do as our lord and master does, and give thanks for this bright day?" Eggsy gives up his pretence of not looking; he is only hurting himself with that refusal to drink in the glory before his eyes. Harry is too tall and handsome for words. "Join me."

Eggsy hangs up the grooming cloth and strokes one hand along Bower's flank to say farewell, then follows Harry into the sunshine. They walk along in silence; Eggsy keeps his eyes fixed on the gently rolling ground to know where to plant his feet. An unexpected sound makes him redirect his gaze. There is a pond in front of them, a breeze whistling through its clustered reeds.

Harry is already baring his creamy skin to the sun, throwing a smile over his shoulder as he does. He strides forward confidently, elegant in every long line.

Eggsy would follow him anywhere on land, but he has no idea how to comport himself in water. He steps forward, feet hesitant, and sits to tug off his hose. The pond's gentle current slips sweetly between his toes, winding through them like living ribbon.

Harry has turned back to him, surprise writ clear across his face as his feet find the pond's floor. His long legs are keeping him only half-covered by blue water, and Eggsy can see the tip of his prick breaking the surface. "Will you not join me?" Harry coaxes, but Eggsy resists and shakes his head, unready to trust himself to the water. "Bare yourself for me, Beauty," Harry pleads, and Eggsy again finds himself powerless to do aught other than what that golden voice commands.

Naked, he is easy prey. Harry swims toward him at speed and seizes him. Eggsy yelps like a frightened pup and folds his legs around Harry's lean waist. The water is cooler than Harry's skin but warm enough that its tickling of his prick and bottom is vastly pleasant. Harry holds him aloft and bends his curly head to suck on Eggsy's nipples.

The sweetness of so many sensations makes him cry aloud, opening his mouth without thought. His _ahhh_ sounds like a prayer, a joyful noise. His fingers weave through and then tighten in Harry's luxuriant curls. The sting of teeth against his nipple keeps him from realising that Harry is striding purposefully through the water, still holding him high. Soft under his back is the grass in which Harry lays him down. It cushions him when Harry drops his mouth to suck at his prick, and Eggsy goes blind, feeling the cool water on his prick slurped greedily. Are those hoofbeats or is it the galloping of his own heart that thunders throughout his body? How can he feel that he is soaring through the air in a perfect tumble when he knows very well he is flat on his back on the ground?

Shudders wrack his body, jolting him like the worst fall he ever took, and then Harry is casting a cool shadow across his sun-warmed chest. "Come, Beauty," Harry murmurs, iron hands on his hips turning him, and Eggsy obeys. He tries, though his hands will not brace him and his arms keep buckling, leaving him to rest cheek and knees in the fragrant grass. Harry draws long fingers down his back and Eggsy nuzzles into the grass, pushing his legs together as Harry guides him. Waiting to learn what happens next, he is aware that he truly does hear hoofbeats not so very distant; his heart is gladdened to know that Lord Merick's courtship continues apace.

Harry pushes his prick between Eggsy's spend-covered thighs, and Eggsy gasps at the shock. He struggles to lift his head, lock his arms, and raise himself up. The sight of Harry's prick, red against the taut milkiness of his own flesh, is equally startling. His fingers knead the grass as Harry ruts against him, burning heat and insistent motion, and Eggsy sobs his pleasure into the ground, chest collapsing on the puddle of Harry's own spend.

Harry licks gently at his thighs before scooping him up like a child to wash him in the pond. Eggsy can do naught but curl against that broad chest and press his face into Harry's neck.

*

Eggsy is still weary and listless once he has been dried by the slowly sinking sun. Harry leads him to a pleasant chamber warmed by braziers, where Lord Merick and Lady Roxanne sit with a chessboard between them. Elaine is resting to one side with Daisy on her lap, and Daisy looks up from the few flowers in Elaine's gnarled hand to smile at him, wriggle free of her gentle captor, and totter swiftly toward him. "Thank you, Elaine," Eggsy says, scooping his sister up, gaining strength from her closeness though his eyelids are still unaccountably heavy.

"Mehck!" Daisy says with some glee, and Eggsy looks at his lord, lining up his pieces on the chessboard. "Mehck," she insists, even pointing at the great lord.

"No, Daisy, he's busy," Eggsy says, fumbling with her as he sees both his lord and lady occupied with same task and Harry sitting down on a stool and settling with his lap-harp. This must be where he and Lord Merick have been spending their evenings.

"I am never too busy for this bonny babe," Lord Merick says kindly, opening his strong, large hands. Eggsy puts her into his arms and she coos happily and leans back against the broad chest that must vibrate pleasantly with the deep tones of his voice. "She can advise me well, I am sure."

"Have you need of advice, my lord, to best me?" Lady Roxanne asks sweetly, making her opening move and then reaching across the board to tap Daisy's nose.

"Wife," Lord Merick says, as Harry's melody floats through the air, buoying his sweet words into a song, "a man who does not muster his best against you is a fool."

"That term cannot be applied to you, husband," Lady Roxanne parries, smiling up at him; her merriment is so bewitching, Eggsy sees, that Lord Merick forgets to make his counter entirely. It takes Daisy's questing foot knocking over some few of his pieces to serve as a reminder.

"Nay, Daisy," Lord Merick chides, kissing the small foot and setting his pieces aright. "You mustn't give aid to my lady wife. If you do not wish to play chess, perhaps you will assist me in disposing of these flaumpens." He breaks off a small enough piece for Daisy to chew and then takes a bite of his own.

Eggsy's belly betrays him then, gurgling loud enough to be heard even over Harry's music. He hadn't seen the platter of pork pies set up on the far side of the table at which the game is being played. Meriam's flaumpens look well-filled and golden-brown, entirely appetising. "May I?"

"Of course," Lady Roxanne says. "Apologies for speaking for you, husband. I thought you must be entirely consumed in planning your own opening move, so long has your contemplation lasted."

Eggsy gives in then, making his way over to the platter with eager steps and hefting one dense little pie. His first bite is delicious, and he looks over at Harry, still faithfully caressing the strings of his harp to make music that exalts the hearers. Harry nods when Eggsy stands near him, so Eggsy breaks off a good-sized chunk and holds it close to Harry's mouth. Harry's lips and tongue play delicately, deliberately with Eggsy's fingertips and Eggsy finds himself swallowing his own mouthful before he quite means to; it is a heavy lump in his throat and then his belly. It is dangerous, to feel so much for a man who very clearly has everything he wants and needs no more.

"Pardon, my lord, I need sleep," Eggsy blurts out, turning away from Harry's beautiful face and glittering eyes. "By your leave," he says, gathering Daisy up from Lord Merick's lap, and bowing goodnight to the group. Daisy squirms a little but settles quickly, heaving his arm up so she can try to bite the pie still in his hand for herself. "Say goodnight, Daisy," he says, knowing she only ever speaks the one word but needing to put some distance between himself and the man who has tumbled his world upside down.

The room Harry has set up for them is already warmed and the small bed looks inviting by the flickering light of the braziers. The rest of the pie disappears in a trice, Daisy evidently as hungry as he, and Eggsy just has time to kiss her sweet face before sleep draws a veil over his eyes.

*

Daisy is too warm, tucked against his side in an unmoving lump. He can feel her quick breaths and he peels back their mother's blanket, easing it out of her small fists despite her fretful whimpers. The flickering light from the brazier shows her face to be shiny with sweat. Eggsy sits bolt upright and holds her close to his chest. She is not quite awake, but it is dark, not yet dawn, so she should by all rights still be asleep.

Like Harry, in the big bed, on his side, one arm outstretched. Harry has kicked off the blankets on his bed; mayhap Daisy is simply too overheated in a smaller bed, closer to the brazier and with his own body heat contributing to her discomfort. She sighs when he loosens the twisted folds of her clothing. He blows cool air on her throat and her breathing slows and she settles.

If he lets himself fall asleep again, she will only roast the more. He gathers her more securely and leaves the chamber, picking his way down the cold stone steps. There is a sound of some chatter, brisk and busy, from the direction of the kitchens but he still knows so few of them, save Simon, Elaine's strong son, who spits the meat and chops the wood, and Meriam, who rules the kitchens as she has done since Lord Merick was a boy. Meriam claims that the great lord will not touch an appulmoy unless he is assured she has made it herself; Eggsy has not tried the delicacy but is inclined to believe in the powers of one who has ensured, at the great lord's behest, that Daisy's milk always has a dollop of honey. The kitchen workers sound too industrious to interrupt.

While he is dithering, he hears a splash of water and heads in the direction of the laundry. A little water on Daisy's brow will cool her nicely. The laundry is lit by several torches but large enough to retain its pleasant coolness. What all the laundresses are working for in the middle of the night is puzzling him, unless they are trying to avoid the heat of midday by scrubbing and boiling when the air is cool, but he makes no comment other than to return their cheery greetings.

Perhaps they were overly cheery. He turns from dipping his hand into the tub of water and gently smearing his wet fingertips along Daisy's brow and throat and cheeks to find a ring of washerwomen watching him like hawks. They laugh when he goes still as a mouse. "What?" he asks, knowing they cannot mean any harm if Elaine is smiling along with them.

She beckons him close and then takes Daisy, now sleeping restfully, into her arms. She looks her over closely and nods approvingly at him. "You did well to cool her down," Elaine says, and Eggsy's legs go abruptly boneless; if anyone would know how to raise a strong and healthy child, it is Elaine, whose Simon, she told him once, was the runt of the litter. "You did well, Eggsy."

"The bard must say so too," one of the women says, prompting a fresh round of laughter. Another, even bolder, advances when he says nothing in his confusion. "We see the bedclothes and blankets," she informs him, not unkindly. "The bard must love to make sweet music on your body."

He can feel his cheeks flame at the thought that so many know how easily he tumbles into Harry's strong arms, how wantonly he accedes to the importunings of Harry's hands and mouth and eyes. "Did you not know that it is all there, clear as day for us?"

He shakes his head, mutely, then remembers Lady Roxanne saying something about the blood upon her bedsheet being offered as proof of her marriage's validity. He had not considered that any knowledge could be gained from examining Harry's bedclothes.

"No," he admits. What else can they see? Can they see that he has lost his heart to Harry, or that Harry keeps only Lord Merick in his own? "And, and, my lady Roxanne?" he stumbles in the asking, hoping that her sheets tell only of joy now.

The washerwomen turn to Elaine at that, and she eyes him thoughtfully before speaking. "Never fret, Eggsy. Lady Roxanne will be welcoming a babe of her own by winter, and God willing they will both be hale and happy."

Lady Roxanne is to be a mother. Eggsy's throat catches and he steps forward to take Daisy back. She will have no time to teach him to read, and Lord Merick will have an heir to rightfully enjoy all the attention he lavishes on Daisy. Eggsy is only an unlettered jongleur, with no skills to offer for his keep and no security to shelter his sister.

Dazedly, he makes his way back to the bedchamber and settles himself beside his sister, peacefully sleeping without a notion that Eggsy is failing her. He lies on his side, curled around his darling and dear, and prays that Lady Roxanne is delivered of her child safely and that he and Daisy might still have a place here, where his heart cannot leave.

*

He wakes with sunlight in his eyes. His neck is aching as badly as it had when Dean had wrung it in an attempt to take his head clean off, but there is a small and welcome hand patting his head. He untwists and looks up to see Daisy sitting on the bed, balanced by a long arm curving around her bottom. She is stroking his hair like he's Bower, and it feels vastly pleasant.

Harry is next to her, keeping her upright, and Eggsy does not know where to look as he sits up. "Oh, dear heart, what ails you?" Harry asks, drawing a tender thumb along his cheek. Eggsy shuts his eyes again, but he can feel the bed shift as Harry leans forward to kiss his cheek. Daisy, not to be outdone, does the same and then grabs his finger.

"Eggsy," Harry says, more firmly, his voice a golden arrow that pierces without pain. "Eggsy, tell me."

Eggsy shakes his head stubbornly. "Egg!" he hears, and his eyes pop open.

That was Daisy's voice. That was Daisy speaking his name, as if to lay claim to him. She lurches forward, too quickly for Harry to grab her, but Eggsy is used to her whims and catches her around the waist. Utterly trusting that she will be held safe, she pushes her face against his. "Egg, Egg," she says insistently.

He cannot deny her anything. Her little brow is puckered in thought, and he smooths a hand over her tumbled curls. "You got your Egg, Daisy-girl, I promise."

She settles against him and pats gently at the hand on her waist. Her touch is soothing, until she brings his hand up to her mouth and gives his finger a good bite. He laughs in his surprise. "I've no more pie hidden away, Daisy my dove," he says.

"Nor I," Harry says, and Eggsy jumps at the reminder that he is not alone with his sister, "but I know where more might be found. Come." Eggsy hurries to follow but before they are even fully out of Harry's chamber they meet Lady Roxanne. "Good day, my lady," Harry says, and Eggsy is surprised that Harry's voice no longer sounds tarnished when he speaks his friend's wife's name.

"Well met, all," Lady Roxanne says. "I am glad you have wakened, Eggsy; I did not want you to miss any part of this feast day."

He has got out of the custom of keeping saints' days without Rhiannon's cooking as a calendar. "Which saint, my lady?"

"None," she says, smiling so impishly that Daisy gurgles her pleasure at seeing it. "My lord claimed his people like a celebration once a season, but I suspect he simply wanted a feast to mark his unexpected victory in last night's mighty battle."

Eggsy laughs then, and the sound is swallowed up by the crowd in the great hall, everyone looking merry. On the high table are golden wheels of cheese, fresh bread, roast fowl, platters heaped with hastlete and peasecods, and a large dish of chireseye. Lord Merick is hoisting a splendidly worked cup and his deep voice rings out as he offers a litany of names to the cheers of those gathered. Eggsy is curious about the names that he speaks, not knowing what thread unites Tilde with Meriam, Simon with Lady Roxanne, and all of them to their great lord. "Summer babes, all!" Lord Merick says, drinking from his cup and passing it to his wife, who sips and passes it on to Simon. Eggsy can smell the mead as it goes by his nose and Daisy tries to reach for the goblet. Simon catches the movement and turns back, enough for Eggsy to dip a quick finger in the cup as it makes its rounds and just wet Daisy's lips with the drink; she's a summer babe as well and he is not going to break any much-loved traditions in their new home, for as long as it is theirs.

"This wee chuck was born under a summer moon?" Lord Merick asks, and Eggsy nods. His mother had shone with sweat from morn to eve in those last weeks, and still she had known enough to sew a blanket for her babe. He nearly let Daisy smother herself with that blanket; his care cannot make up for their mother's loss.

He nods and tries to smile. "That was a blessed day," Lord Merick says, and Eggsy nods again. He should offer his congratulations to the lord on the heir in his wife's belly, but he is too stupid with sleep and shock to find the words.

"As is this one," Harry says, and Eggsy turns, surprised to hear him say so. Harry's eyes are fixed on him and shining like the summer sun. Their gazes lock, and then Harry looks away. "Is that dish of chireseye for me, Merlin?"

"Summer babes eat first at their own feast," Lord Merick says without pause, his tone and gestures teasing. "Those born in the spring must wait their turn."

"Husband," Lady Roxanne says, taking Daisy and leaving Eggsy with another fond smile as she joins in the teasing of the bard, "how did you know how fond I am of chireseye? You and Daisy and I alone could finish it off, I am certain."

Eggsy musters up a smile for all of the gentle jesting, but he feels bereft without Daisy in his arms and foolish for wanting to be held in his mother's embrace but once more. He hugs himself tightly but it does nothing.

"Dear heart," Harry says low into his ear and takes his hand to lead him out of the great hall. Back up the winding stone steps they go until they are once more in the bedchamber. "What is it?"

Eggsy does not have it in him to remain strong. Let Harry do as he will. He collapses against Harry's broad, warm chest and waits.

"Eggsy," Harry says, so gently that the reverberation of his words soothes rather than tickles Eggsy's cheek, "I have not told you of my love."

All of the emotions buffeting Eggsy since the day before have left him a mere husk. Perhaps the gold of Harry's voice will fill him up.

"I have not spoken the word because what seems vast to me must be commonplace for you." Eggsy stirs, trying to look into Harry's eyes. Harry dips his head and kisses him with unbearable tenderness. "You love so freely, have given your heart to your sister and found still more love for Merlin and Lady Roxanne. I cannot measure up to your mark. Merlin is the only one I have ever loved, and that was before I knew what I was about - he was my foster-brother and I was his happy shadow. I have been jealous of his wife, for standing in what was once my place. I have not your gift for loving, nor his neither. He has made place in his heart for brother and wife and friend as surely as you have opened yours."

Eggsy feels dazed, as if he has landed on his head instead of his feet. "I do not understand."

"I love you, Eggsy, and I hope you know how truly." Harry's eyes are shining.

"It cannot be so," Eggsy whispers, without meaning to speak aloud.

"It is, my Beauty and my Dear Heart." Harry's hands are so big they nearly span Eggsy's waist, and so hot they are warming him through his chemise and cotte.

"Why do you speak these words?" He has to know. "You have had everything you could want -"

"No," Harry says. "Not when I had yet to see your face when you heard me tell of my love." Harry seems unsatisfied, bending his knees so they are at a level and running his eyes searchingly over every bit of Eggsy's face. "Not when I still have not seen you believe the truth of what I say."

Eggsy feels his throat lock tight around his own confession of love. Is Harry truly requiting him? He steps back, takes a deep breath, and looks up. Harry's hand comes up as if it cannot help it, as if reaching out to him is a heart-directed reflex, and Eggsy sees yearning, lonely and pure, in Harry's wide eyes.

"I believe," Eggsy says.

"Eggsy?" Harry says, rushing breath narrowing his golden voice to the merest trickle.

"I believe and I love too," Eggsy confesses, and then Harry is bending him backwards in an ardent kiss, and he can no longer feel the ground beneath his feet.

*

Eggsy settles himself on a stool with the harp that was Lady Roxanne's gift. He has learned much from Harry's tuition but still cannot rival the bard's skill. Harry has no equal in this or in many other things, but Eggsy catches himself before he can lose the hours alone - Daisy is in Elaine's faithful hands - in contemplation of the man he loves. He plucks at the strings again, trying to match the melody that he hears in his mind. The words he has composed are what will make a proper puzzle of his song, but they must wait until he can produce the tune. There - he almost had it -

His hands fall gracelessly on the strings when his head is drawn back. Clever fingers play along his taut throat and a warm, sweet mouth plunders his upside-down. "I thought your pretty lap was my rightful home," Harry says, kissing along the line of his jaw.

"My harp belongs there too," Eggsy argues. He clutches at it more firmly so he cannot run rewarding fingers through Harry's curls.

"Such diligence," Harry says, releasing him. "Shall I aid you?"

Eggsy looks at him, surprised. Harry should be making celestial music, not being held back by his fumblings. Harry kneels behind him and kisses his neck. "Beauty?" Eggsy says nothing, trying not to melt into Harry's caresses or the heat of Harry's chest against his back. "Sing your song and we will play along," Harry suggests.

Eggsy's voice is small, but the melody in his head is true. Harry puts Eggsy's fingers on the strings as the song dictates, and Eggsy memorises the movements. He can do this.

Harry stands when the song is done and fetches his own harp and stool. Eggsy plays the song again and Harry weaves a new melody that twines around it. Together they sound more glorious than Eggsy had known he could, and his heart overflows with love.

*

Lord Merick was right - Meriam's appulmoy is so delicious that Eggsy wants the whole dish for himself, but he shares with the other autumn-borns at the feast. The macrows and peasecods are just as pleasing, and he happily eats his fill, knowing that Daisy, nestled in Lord Merick's strong arms, is surely being fed morsels of every treat. Lady Roxanne, great with child, has more need of rest than food, but Lord Merick is no backward husband and will have set aside the best of each dish for his wife for when she rises.

Eggsy savours the taste of honeyed cryspels in his mouth even as he reaches for a wedge of cheese and one more flaumpen. A cheer arises on the other side of the great hall, and he strains his neck to see. All he can see is that Lord Merick is passing Daisy to Harry and advancing to the foot of the steps. Lady Roxanne must have wakened and joined the festivities.

Her belly cuts a path for her, but she laughs and entreats them to keep feasting. Eggsy comes close enough to hear her say to Lord Merick, "Do not think this feast foretells another victory, husband." That she rises up on her tiptoes to reach his ear even as she clasps a hand contentedly over her swelling belly is enough to make Eggsy feel protective all over again, and he can only imagine how the gesture will fire Lord Merick's ardour.

Harry passes Daisy to him and winds an arm around him. "I believe we will be called on to entertain our lord and lady, Beauty."

He cannot tumble after gorging himself so, but surely Harry cannot mean that Eggsy will have to play his harp in front of others? He only knows one song, and it is the silly little puzzle song he composed himself, nothing proper.

"Come, dear heart," Harry says, and propels him forward.

Daisy cheers when she sees who is in the small chamber, shouting, "Egg! Mehck!" Lady Roxanne and Lord Merick both turn from the chessboard to smile at her, and Harry nudges him close enough that Daisy is leaning out of his arms, ready to pitch forward into Lord Merick's lap.

"Eggsy has a song to share," Harry announces and Eggsy squirms under the happy interest of his lord and lady.

"Would you sing for us, Eggsy?" Lord Merick asks, even as he pretends to bite at Daisy's small fist. Daisy giggles, and Eggsy feels happy enough to float.

"Yes, my lord," he says, and fetches both harps. Harry has set his stool behind and to the side of Eggsy's, so Eggsy sees nothing but his lord, lady, and sister when he begins to sing the song Daisy has inspired.

_I have a yong suster so dear she is to me, manye be the druries that she sente me: she sente me the cherye withouten any stoon, and so she dide the dove withouten any boon; she sente me the brere withouten any rinde; she bad me love my lemman withoute longinge._ As he sings and plays, he can hear Harry's melody too and he looks up to see Lady Roxanne gazing at her husband while Daisy stands on his lap, balanced by the lord's hands holding hers. Lord Merick is looking directly at him, smiling as he works out how the sister's gifts are possible.

_How sholde any cherye be withoute stoon? And how sholde any dove be withoute boon? How sholde any brere be withoute rinde? How sholde I love my lemman withoute longinge?_ Lord Merick holds Daisy with such tenderness that Eggsy would sing himself hoarse if he asked. Daisy is wide-eyed and Eggsy can only hope that she likes the sound of the song. _Whan the cherye was a flowr, thanne hadde it no stoon; whan the dove was an ey, thanne hadde it no boon; whan the brere was unbred, thanne hadde it no rinde; whan the lover hath that he loveth, he is withoute longinge._

He finishes with one last sweet-sounding strum of the strings, and is startled by the heartiness of the applause. He looks up to see that Lord Merick is guiding Daisy's hands to clap. "Egg!" Daisy says with glee.

Lord Merick's smile has never seemed kinder. "A man with a wife of wit and beauty, a babe on his lap, and _two_ bards is fortunate indeed."

Harry's hand has found and clasped Eggsy's own, and Eggsy can find no words to speak his heart other than the ones he sang. Harry must agree, for he leans forward to say, "I am without longing, Beauty, for I have you."

"I have no need of more," Eggsy manages to say, low in Harry's ear, before he rises to take his smiling sister into his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note that both the songs that are sung in this fic are real medieval songs, though I edited Eggsy's song slightly to fit his circumstances.


End file.
